Category: Other witnesses

Friday, February 13, 2009

Seven Sad And Deprived Friends - Our Hearts Really Go Out To Them

Posted by Our Main Posters

[click for larger image]

Sophie Purton, Amy Frost, Natalie Hayworth, Jade Bidwell, Samantha Rodenhurst, Helen Powell and Robyn Butterworth..

Lifetime friendships would have formed in Perugia, as they do in such places.  Now probably sadly affected for the rest of their lives.

Shot outside the court complex today, by photographer Nick Cornish.

Trial: Days 4 And 5 - The Court Agenda For Friday And Saturday

Posted by Nicki

Notes on who will testify, from the Giornale dell’Umbria.

Arriving on Thursday, and accompanied by their parents, will be seven British women student friends of Meredith. The prosecutors consider their testimony very important because the women students are expected to provide important details about relationship and personal movements.

The seven young women are Sophie Purton, Meredith’s closest friend (they were students together at the University of Leeds), Robyn Butterworth, Natalie Hayward, Amy Frost, Samantha Lee Rodenhurst, Jade Bidwell and Mary Power. Since none speaks Italian (after their friend was murdered they quickly returned to England), the Court has appointed a translator, Isabella Preziosi.

The Friday hearing will be devoted to their testimony, which will focus on the last hours in the life of Meredith. She partied with them on Halloween Night, at the pubs and clubs of the old town, and on the afternoon of November 1st was a guest at the apartment of one of the girls.

In particular, the witnesses will be asked to say who Meredith spent the night of Halloween with, whether or not she met Rudy Hermann Guede, and what she said and did during the afternoon they spent talking and having dinner together.

Sophie Purton was the last person who saw Meredith alive. The two walked together from via Bontempi along via Roscetto, a few minutes before 9 pm, on their way home.

The witnesses will also be asked to testify about the relationship between Amanda and Meredith and about what, allegedly, the American girl told them while at the police station waiting to be questioned, on the afternoon of November 2 and during the days that followed.

The Saturday witnesses include Meredith’s roomie Laura Mezzetti, who works for a law firm in Perugia like her friend, Filomena Romanelli, who testified last Saturday.

Giacomo Silenzi (an Italian friend of the British student); his friend Stefano Dalio Bonassi; and the carabiniere Daniel Ceppitelli, the operator of the 112 call center, will also testify. Stefano Bonassi had testified in an earlier hearing that Rudy was attracted to Amanda, when they had met in the downstairs apartment that he shared with Silenzi.

Here is last week’s testimony and here is the theory of the crime.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Trial: Highlights Of The Testimony On 6 February And 7 February

Posted by Peter Quennell

These seem to have been the most significant and dramatic happenings in the courtroom on Friday and Saturday.

This was the first part of the prosecution’s case to be presented, and so the first of the prosecution witnesses were testifying and were being cross-examined by the defense lawyers.

In the defense part of the trial coming up, the defense counsel will present their own witnesses to try to rebut this testimony, and then the prosecutors will cross-examine their witnesses.

So none of this can be considered cast in stone, then. But it looks quite a tough case so far. The defenses seem to have their work cut out for them.

Reports in the Italian media were considerably more detailed than in the UK media, though coverage there was good too. It looked in both countries to be pretty objective.

Americans are as usual the most ill-informed or mis-informed on this tragic case. With one or two fine exceptions, the US media continues to fall short.

Translations here from Italian to English are mostly by our own team. 

• Judge Massei admitted into evidence the uncoerced written admission of Amanda Knox that she was present at the scene during the murder of Meredith.


• In a surprise statement to the court, Sollecito claimed that “I barely knew Meredith, I didn’t know Guede at all” and that he began a close relationship with Knox only on 24 October, days before the murder.


• The communication police testified on the lines of the Micheli report on how Meredith’s two mobile phones were found in Signora Lana’s garden and retained at the police station.


• Mr Bartolozzi, whose agency oversees internet activity in Italy, said an examination of Sollecito’s computer had indicated that contrary to his claim there had been no activity on it between 9.10pm and 5.32am.


• The communication police seem to have found Knox and Sollecito embarrassed and surprised when they arrived, and they were apparently encountered with a bucket and a mop.


• Sollecito’s claim to have already called the Carabinieri to come to the house when the communication police officers arrived seems to have been misleading.


• The communication police noticed that there was a washing machine in operation and they could hear the noise of the centrifuge. Soon after, the mobile-squad police found that the machine had finished its work a few minutes earlier, and the clothes were still warm.


• Filomena testified that the washing machine was still warm when she returned to the cottage and that it contained some of Meredith’s clothes.


• Filomena said of Knox “She told me: ‘It’s very odd. I’ve just come back to the house and the door is open. I had a shower but there’s blood everywhere. I’m going to get Raff. Meredith is nowhere to be seen. Oh God, maybe something’s happened to her, something tragic’.”


• Filomena said she replied “But Amanda. I don’t understand. Explain to me, because there’s something odd. The door’s open. You take a shower. There’s blood. But where’s Meredith?... The door’s open. I go in. There’s blood. I take a shower? I don’t know about you, but I really don’t think that that’s normal.”


• To the communication police, the break-in via Filomena’s bedroom window appeared to have been faked, as there was window glass on top of some disarrayed clothes, valuable items had been left in the room, and luminol had revealed Knox-sized and Sollecito-sized footprints on the floor.
  
• Filomena testified that her first instinct on returning to the apartment had been to go to her room. Her clothes were on the floor and her cupboard was open, but none of her jewellery was missing, nor were her designer sunglasses and handbags.


• Filomena said there was glass on top of the pile of clothes. Her laptop was among the clothes.“I remember that in lifting the computer I realised that I was picking up bits of glass because there were bits of glass on top and it was all covered with glass.”


• Filomena testified that the relationship between Amanda and Meredith started off well and they bonded immediately.  “They were of the same age, they had interests in common, and both spoke English.” Then the relationship seemed to deteriorate.


• Filomena said that Kercher was involved with a “very kind” young man, Giacomo Silenzi, who lived in an apartment downstairs and who she said “courted her very sweetly…. Meredith never brought men home ““ the only people who came to the house were two of her English girlfriends.”


• Filomena contradicted Knox on whether Meredith was in the habit of locking herself in her bedroom, according to Filomena, Meredith never did, whether inside or outside.


• Filomena testified that Knox and Sollecito just cuddled at the scene while everyone else was in tears and she said she was bewildered by Knox’s behavior. Another witness testified that Knox may have cried.


• Filomena examined the knife found in Sollecito’s apartment and said she had never seen that knife in Via della Pergola. She was unaware of any dinner or lunch that Meredith had attended at Sollecito’s apartment which could explain her DNA on that knife.


• Filomena said she saw Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox exchanging a note at the police station.


• Luca Altieri said “With the police we decided to break into the room - I don’t know exactly where Amanda and Raffaele were at that time, but I can tell you, they were not in a position to see inside the room.”


• Inspector Bastianelli described having made everyone exit the house after the door to Meredith’s room had been opened. And of then having stood for about half a minute at the door of the room, facing into the room without entering it, and concluding that Meredith was already dead.


• But according to Luca Altieri, Inspector Bastianelli seemed to enter into Meredith’s room a little and incline toward Meredith on the floor [this has been modified, as Italian reports say he did not claim the inspector touched the duvet.]


• Paola Grande confirmed not having seen the inspector entering the room, but hearing him subsequently confirm that the person under the bedcover was dead, that there was a lot of blood, and that the victim had struggled because there were bloodied prints on the wall.


• The police were curious as to why Knox’s lamp was in Meredith’s room, especially as there was no other light source in Knox’s room.

This next Friday, Meredith’s English friends will be heard in court. And Meredith’s former boyfriend Giacomo Silenzi is expected to tell the court about his relationship with Meredith.

And now rescheduled for next Saturday are Giacomo Silenzi, Stefano Bonassi and Daniele Ceppitelli.

Friday, February 06, 2009

Trial: Prosecution Resumes: The Court Agenda For Friday And Saturday

Posted by Nicki

The two”“day session will re-enact the early phase of the investigation, and a number of witnesses are expected to be heard. The session will proceed in chronological order, and the Prosecution will go first.

Throughout trial, the Prosecution have the largest number of witnesses along with Sollecito’s defense (each estimated at about ninety witnesses), followed by Knox’s defense (sixty-five) and the civil plaintiffs represented by Mr F. Maresca. (sixty).

All these witnesses will be called to testify over a period of some weeks. For the moment, trial hearings have been scheduled only until the end of April. The next hearings will take place on February 13, 14, 27, and 28, also March 13, 14, 20, 21, 27, and 28, and also April 3, 4, 18, 23 and 24.

It is presumed that the first one on the stand for the Prosecution will be Mr F. Bartolozzi, the Chief of the Perugia Postal Police, who will detail the sequence of events leading to the departure of two policemen to the house in Via della Pergola, in order to inform Filomena Romanelli that her mobile phone had been found in someone else”˜s yard. Mr Bartolozzi will also give an account of when and how the second mobile phone (Meredith’s) was found and reported to the police.

Next to be heard will be the Inspector and Assistant that first arrived at the apartment, met Sollecito and Knox, and found Meredith’s body approximately 45 minutes later. They will give an account of the series of events leading to the discovery of the crime scene. Also the carabiniere who took Sollecito phone call

More witnesses later on Friday or on Saturday will include: the lady who found the phones in her yard (Ms Lana) and her two children. Also the four friends who arrived at the cottage right before Meredith’s body was discovered: Marco Zaroli, who had received a phone call from his girlfriend Filomena (alerted by Knox) asking him to go by the house and check what was going on; and Luca Altieri (a friend of Zaroli)), and Paola Grande (Altieri’s girlfriend), and Filomena herself. Also Giacomo Silenzi, Meredith’s boyfriend, and the other boys who lived downstairs.

These testimonies are all very important, but some may prove to be crucial. The Postal Police, in order to establish once and for all if Sollecito called 112 before or after their arrival. And Filomena who, among other things, should testify as to whether Meredith locked her bedroom door every time she wasn’t inside as Knox had claimed.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

So The Trial Date IS Postponed, Now It’s 16 January

Posted by Peter Quennell

This is a translation of the report from La Stampa.

Meredith process, hearing postponed

Amanda and Raffaele have to answer to the charge of murder

The case against Amanda and Raffaele is postponed to allow for the reading of additional investigations carried out by the Public Prosecutor

Postponed to January 16, 2009, is the hearing for the murder of Meredith Kercher, which initiates the trialproceedings against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, who are accused of murder in the taunting and violence against American student (Rudy Guede has already been sentenced to 30 years jis trial having been expedited, ed.)

The presiding judge, Giancarlo Massei, deferred the opening session to enable the parties to get to know the contents of the additional investigations carried out by the prosecutor of Perugia. Tomorrow is the deadline for the submission of lists and texts that will amount to a total of about a hundred.

And a brief summary of some of the other recent developments in the case….

• A witness who knew her claims to have seen Amanda Knox in a supermarket early on the day after the crime


• A second witness claims to have heard a scream on the evening of the crime, this one stating a precise time


• A witness claims to have seen Knox, Sollecito and Guede together previously - if so, they did know one another


• A cut was apparently seen on Knox’s neck by another house resident; autopsy and scenario are being reviewed


• A fund-raising event in Seattle apparently raised $11,000 to help defray Knox’s parents’ defense and travel costs


• And a Kercher family request for a closed-door trial - permitted in Italy for sex crimes - is now being reviewed

One of the great areas of conjecture is whether the alleged defendants actually pre-planned an assault on Meredith.  Or whether it was perhaps just a taunt, one that took on a deadly spiral.

There was an apparent simultaneous switching-off of their mobiles earlier in the evening, for a reason not so far explained. And now an apparent prior three-way relationship between the two charged and the one sentenced? This does not look good.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Hoax: Huge Problem With “There Is No Evidence”

Posted by Peter Quennell

Startling new evidence…

Today reports are surfacing in Italy that a witness (one of the hidden 100) seems to have seen Amanda Knox in this Conad supermarket (lower right and below) at 7:45 on the morning after the crime.

Knox apparently claimed she was asleep in Sollecito’s apartment to around 10:00 am.

This supermarket (right above) is maybe 50 meters from the School for Foreigners (ahead above). About 600 meters from Raffaele Solecito’s apartment (behind above). And about 300 meters from Meredith’s house (left above).

It sells, among other things, laundry detergent (laundry of Meredith’s clothes may have been happening when the cops arrived) and bleach (the place might have been bleached to hide evidence). 

Amanda Knox may have been seen in that detergent and bleach area, by someone who knows her, and then seen exiting in the direction of her house - Meredith’s house.

New evidence should really not come as much of a surprise.

Despite claims to the contrary - that it has all been leaked, and found wanting - the evidence in this case is actually more like an iceberg.

Eighty-plus percent of it is still out of sight. Little of what is in those 10,000 pages of sealed evidence, added to daily by new witnesses, is known to outsiders.

Much of what we HAVE seen of it hangs true.

And those few who are insiders seem to get noticeably more quiet and cautious when they do see it. Rudy Guede’s lawyers were bullish about his prospects - until they saw it.

And then Rudy Guede got handed 30 years.

The defendants really deserve a GOOD defense. By their lawyers. And hopefully, at long last, by their friends.

Sliming Italy and the players in the case looks like a slow-motion train-wreck to us.  Available evidence deserves to be gone over without reflexive shoot-from-the-hip dismissal.

So. No evidence? Perhaps that mantra should now be laid to rest. It’s increasingly looking to be flat-out wrong.

And a quick shortcut to a life behind bars.

Friday, November 14, 2008

La Nazione Is Reporting There Will Be Nearly 100 Witnesses

Posted by Peter Quennell

Including a possible three new eye-witnesses in the vicinity of the house on the night in question.

And that the lawyer for the Kercher family, Mr Maresca, says they would prefer no TV cameras in the courtroom.

English translation here if and when we get one. But that is the main news in the piece.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Test Your Grasp Of The Evidence: Locate The Witness’s Apartment

Posted by Kermit

1. Key Location: Signora Nara’s Apartment

The Meredith case is a puzzling and very complicated one, with a talented, hard-working and very appealing girl student, Meredith Kercher, as its sad victim.

Set in an exotic old Italian university town (which normally sees no murders) in another country and under another legal system for most followers. With the main reporting in Italian.

With the victim of one nationality and the suspects of three other nationalities. With limited public information released by police and prosecutors, and with some smoke blown by the defense teams and their enablers.

Analyzing the case based on the public information available at any one time might remind you of peeling the layers of onions. A lot of onions.

Here now is one example of the peeling of an onion. It concerns the evidence of a close neighbor who claims to have heard some telling sounds. Despite some attempts to harass her, the signora and her testimony emerge looking pretty credible.

Signora Nara (her first name) lives in an apartment somewhere above the house of the victim and one of the defendants. She thinks she heard a terrible scream - and then some running footsteps down in front of her apartment somewhere above the girls’ house.

Where her place is really matters because, if she is too far away or at the wrong angle, her evidence becomes a lot less credible.

You need all of these shots to understand her situation. The essential clue as to which one it is is hiding in plain site here.  It was Kermit on the pro-evidence forum (Kermit knows Perugia and has studied the key locations in great depth) who first spotted it, around 10 days ago.The answer is at bottom here.

2. The Various Clues Hiding In Plain Sight

Below: Signora Nara’s apartment is in fact clearly visible somewhere in this shot

Below: The girls’ house cannot be seen from the basement floors of those house

Below: The roof of the girls’ house CAN be seen from apartments one flight up

Below: These are the steel stairs where Signora Nara says she heard climbing footsteps

Below: Again, the steel stairs where Signora Nara says she heard climbing footsteps

Below: The main street south of her apartment; her front door is in a passage left of and parallel to this

Below: This is that parallel passage, here at its west end, emerging (left) onto the stairs by a park

Below: A CBS investigator and a translator in that passage outside Signora Nara’s front door

Below: The CBS investigator and translator again in that passage - at the ground-floor flat

Below: Her bathroom window seen from the parking facility at what is the BACK of her unit

Below: Two shots of Singnora Nara looking to the left and down from that bathroom window

Below: Shot of her on her balcony looking down and to the left - to the girls’ house

Below: Shots of the roof of the girls’ house; they are from one floor above Signora Nara’s

Below: Roof of the girls’ house in daylight from a similar location - not very far away

Below: And its gravel parking area where she claims she heard some of the footsteps

3. And The Vital Clue Is…

Below: The vital clue is this bathroom window - surrounded by an extensive mock window facade

4. And Therefore Her Apartment Is…

Below: The ONLY second-level apartment with a mock facade and balcony is above the trees at center here

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

CCTV Video: Seemingly Unlikely That Meredith And Guede Are Seen Here Together

Posted by Peter Quennell

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Above: this is possibly Meredith returning home. Below: this is possibly Guede, presumably headed for the house as well..

First, the whole video really REEKS of wetness. Looks like Frank of Perugia Shock gets it wrong once again. All the horizontal surfaces are gleaming. Take a look at the last shot below. The reflection of the car headlights suggests a light rain - still in progress.

Second, the CCTV monitors in our own parking buildings here have a much wider field of view than we are seeing in the video. The video (see the post below) gives the impression of having been zoomed-in for the TV broadcast version - they do that a lot. And it is very compressed.

Three, it is something of a surprise not to see Meredith returning home by way of the steel stairs. That (blue line) is the shorter route for her. What we see here suggests she used the stone steps. Maybe the light is better on that route. Or maybe she picked up a gelato from the gelateria up the top..

Fourth, it is puzzling that Guede arrives from the direction of the steel stairs. That (the red line) is not the quick route down from the kebab place, and he may have had business in the direction of the Chic bar.

Or wanted very much to hide his face en route. For SOME nefarious purpose.

Two more images from the parking-facility CCTV camera.

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Above: this is possibly Meredith returning home. Below: this is possibly Guede, presumably headed for the house as well.