Category: Cellphone activity

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Trial: Did Someone Prevent Meredith Calling Home On The Night?

Posted by Peter Quennell

“The British student Meredith Kercher may have tried to telephone her mother in a last cry for help before she was overpowered and stabbed to death in Perugia in central Italy.”

This story on one of Meredith;s last actions out of the courtroom yesterday is being very widely picked up around the world. Click above for John Follain’s report.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Trial: Report From The Courtroom On Vodaphone Testimony

Posted by stewarthome2000

[above: a defendant-mobile entering Cappanne Prison]

It was a technical day in court, mostly devoted to confirming events and facts that we the public have already known about for a while. The court heard from the Vodaphone engineers, the communications investigator from Rome, and the Perugia homicide squad.

The Vodaphone engineers illustrated that cell phone uses cell points to connect, and those cell points cover certain areas. As you move about, your phone gets switched from tower to tower depending on your location, choosing the best signal for it. Many times, signals from cell points overlap, so one area can be serviced by three or more towers, and if one is blocked or congested the other processes the call.

Why all the background? Because they were setting the stage to show that Sollecito’s cell phone having no traffic from 8:42pm till 6:02am on the night of the murder was not due to him being unable to get a signal at his home. His neighborhood is well covered with cell areas, so most likely the phone was turned off and then turned back on again.

The engineers essentially proved that his phone was, beyond reasonable doubt, turned off from sometime after 8:42pm and turned on at 6:02am. At 6:02am he finally received a sms text that his dad sent the night before around 11:15pm, which had been undeliverable while the phone was switched off.

This was shown to be unusual behavior for him, because throughout the entire month of October he never once tuned his mobile phone off so early (nearly every night it was on till around 11 or midnight or later) or ever once turned it on so early - usually he turned back on well after 9, 10 or even 11am. So they showed not only that this behavior was unusual and unprecedented for him”¦ but that it happened to be on the night that Meredith was murdered.

It was also shown that Sollecito on the day of the 2nd topped up his phone with more credit, around 12:20pm, and then called his sister at 12:50pm, and the carabinieri at 12:51pm (connection failed) and then again at 12:55pm. Thereafter, he and his dad exchanged a number of calls, up until he arrived at the police station in the late afternoon.

Knox’s phone was shown to confirm on the night of the murder the exchange of sms messages with Patrick Lumumba, where Patrick sent a message to AK at 8:18pm (in effect “no need to come to work”) and she responded with the message at 8:35pm “ci vediamo piu tardi, buona serata” (“we will see each other later, good evening”).

The police right after the crime thought that might be evidence against Patrick, but I see where the mix-up comes from, because “pui tardi” is almost exclusively used when you plan to see someone later that day or in a few hours. She should have said “ci vediamo presto” which means “soon” or just “ci vediamo”. The way she wrote it, any Italian would think it meant in a few hours or very soon thereafter.

It was confirmed that the last communication from Knox’s phone on the night of the murder was at 8:35pm. Then there was nothing untill the next morning, when she tried to call Meredith’s UK cellphone at 12:07pm. Then she called Filomena, then Meredith’s Italian phone, and then she called home to Seattle a number of times.

The police also showed that Raffaele’s fixed line at his house showed no activity between 12:02pm on the 1st and 2:16pm on the 3rd. So much for activity on his land line or internet.

One interesting fact to emerge was that the eye witness who is saying he saw the three of them together the night of the murder had his mobile phone traced as well. It was shown to be in the Assisi area till the late afternoon on the 1st and then it entered the cell area of Via della Pergola at 8:01pm. So he was in fact in that part of the city on that evening. The prosecution made a request to note that fact.

They also showed, with a dispute from Sollecito’s lawyer Buongiorno, that Meredith’s cell phone made a call (not a phone call but a GPS call attempt) at I believe around 10:15pm, and that the call was made from the area where the phones were found the next day as it involved a different cell tower than those covering Via della Pergola.

So most likely the phone was in the possession of the killer and right then already on its way to the garden in Via Sperandio. So Meredith was most likely killed just before that time. This cell point analysis was done during the day and in a limited area, so this finding was disputed by the defense.

Finally, the homicide squad covered more ground.  They testified that Sollecito’s ASUS computer was already broken before they collected it for testing. They also indicated that they had been monitoring the phone activity and calls of everyone concerned for some time after the murder, including those of Raffaele’s dad. He had made a number of calls, to some of his political connections, to journalists, to legal counsel, to Panorama Magazine, and so on.

They also described the crime scene, and who precisely went in, and who was found at the scene, and who sequestered the knife at Sollecito’s home. One inspector initially claimed that Sollecito’s place smelled like bleach. Buongiorno attacked this, and he changed it to, okay, it smelled as if it had been cleaned with soap.

Overall, the testimony today mainly confirmed in precise and suggestive scientific detail much of what had been in the public area about the communications for some time.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Trial: ABC News Report: Experts Remark On Very Odd Phone Patterns

Posted by Peter Quennell

In another objective report for ABC News, Rome-based reporter Ann Wise adds the following details.

Sollecito was particularly cheerful today…. as the 10th hearing of the trial concentrated on phone records.

Sollecito has always maintained that he was home in his apartment the night of the murder and initially told police his father had called him at home around 11 p.m.

Phone records later showed that he received no such call.,,,

Police investigator Letterio Latella testified today that Knox and Sollecito’s cell phones were inactive most of the night, and activity on the cell phones stopped almost simultaneously….

Latella said that he did not find any evidence of a similar “blackout” of Knox and Sollecito’s phones in the month preceding the murder.

Normally, investigators have said, both Knox and Sollecito’s phones were on until late at night and would come back on in the late morning.

Trial: Testimony On Mobile Phones, Suspicious Silence At Just The Wrong Time

Posted by Peter Quennell

Expert testimony essentially did not depart from the narrative in particular set out by Judge Micheli.

He was the judge who committed Knox and Sollecito to trial. For the full report by Alessandra Rizzo of AP click above. 

1) On the switching off and on of the mobile phones:

The cell phones of two defendants in the murder of a British student killed in Italy remained inactive the night of the murder, witnesses testified Friday.

Investigators say having their cell phones turned off made their whereabouts untraceable. Defense lawyers contend that the cell phone data were inconclusive….

Police inspector Letterio Latella, who analyzed the data, said Knox’s and Sollecito’s cell phones showed no activity on the night of the crime. His testimony confirmed previous witness accounts and provided details of the cell phones’ traffic.

In lengthy testimony supported by PowerPoint slides, Latella said Sollecito’s cell phone remained inactive between 8:42 p.m. of Nov. 1 and 6:02 a.m. of Nov. 2, when he received a text message from his father.

Latella suggested that the cell phone had been turned off because the text message had been sent the night before. He said there were no reported glitches in the network that night, and that other cell phones active in the area appeared to function properly.

Knox’s cell phone was inactive between 8:35 p.m. of Nov. 1 and 12:07 p.m. of Nov. 2, according to Latella, who studied documents provided by the phone operators. At 12:07 p.m., Knox’s called Kercher’s British number….

2) On Knox’s text exchange on the night of the murder with Patrick Lumumba

Phone records showed [Knox] exchanged text messages with the Congolese owner of a pub where she used to work part-time, Latella and other witnesses said.

The messages Knox sent at 8:35 p.m. to the man, Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, said: “Sure. See you later. Have a good night!” said Simone Tacconi of the telecommunications branch of Rome police. The message was written in Italian.

Lumumba was detained for two weeks in November 2007 after he was implicated by Knox. He has since been cleared and is seeking defamation damages from Knox.

Trial: Proceedings Resume, The Agenda For Friday And Saturday Is 11 Witnesses

Posted by Peter Quennell

Eleven witnesses are scheduled - and they are probably about to provide some really dramatic testimony.

On Friday, the police experts who analysed the locations and activities of the phones relevant to the case will take the stand. The phones in question include Meredith’s two mobile phones (one of which was in Filomena’s name) which may have been removed from the house to prevent Meredith from calling for help as she lay dying.

They were both tossed into a garden very close to Sollecito’s and Guede’s places. The finding and reporting of one of the phones resulted in the Communication Police visiting Meredith’s house, where they have testified they found Knox and Sollecito outside apparently quite startled, with a mop and a bucket and the washing machine still running just inside.

One issue is whether anyone tried to use one of Meredith’s phones to communicate deliberately with Meredith’s password-protected bank account in the UK. Her rent money of course disappeared at the time of the murder, and Guede, Sollecito and Knox may all have been low on funds.

There should be confirmation that Sollecito’s father called Sollecito on his apartment’s land-line very late on the evening of the crime. His call went unresponded-to, perhaps because nobody was home at the time.

And there should be confirmation that Sollecito’s and Knox’s mobiles were turned off more or less simultaneously at Sollecito’s house less than an hour before the crime against Meredith took place, and that at least one of them was switched back on before daybreak the next morning, at a time when Knox and Sollecito have both claimed to have been asleep. 

On Saturday, the manager of the Conad supermarket in lower Via Garibaldi (in Sollecito’s street, and about 200 meters from Meredith’s house) will give testimony on whether Knox was seen in the supermarket early on the morning after the crime, and whether any bleach was sold. His previous statement included this:

I saw Amanda, on the morning they found the body of Meredith, doing some shopping at around 7.45am,” the witness, whose name has not yet been released, claimed.

“She was in the part of the shop where they keep detergents, but I couldn’t say for sure if she bought anything,” the man was quoted as saying by the Giornale dell’Umbria newspaper.

“I thought it was very strange for a student to be out so early in the morning. That morning was virtually a holiday, there were no lectures, if there had been I could understand her being up so early.”

Also on Saturday, the boyfriend of Alessandra Formica who apparently saw a black man similar to Guede running up the stairs near the house will testify. He and his girlfriend are often referred to as the diners, and they were returning to their parked car at the time. This could be vital to a firm timeline.

And also on Saturday the man sitting on a bench in the Piazza Grimana, from which the gate of Meredith’s house can easily be seen, is expected to testify that Knox and Sollecito came and sat nearby, late in the evening, and seemed to be keeping an anxious eye on that gate.

The timing of that action appears to be just minutes after a neighbor whose apartment looks onto the house heard a terrible scream and then footsteps running from the house in several directions.

Knox’s stepfather Chris Mellas is expected to again be present. He doesn’t speak Italian. Nevertheless, his spin on the above is awaited with great interest.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Trial: Lot Of Evidence Introduced In First Pass In Afternoon Session

Posted by Peter Quennell

This was testimony from the crime-scene investigators who searched Meredith’s and Sollecito’s apartments on the day after the crime.

The UK press and the Associated Press (the main source for reports in American media) have not yet updated their stories beyond those linked-to below.

But the Italian press is reporting testimony from the officers who found the knife in Sollecito’s apartment which may have Knox’s and Meredith’s DNA on it (see Nicki’s post Monday on the knife and other DNA below).

Also there was testimony on the phone records which seems to indicate Knox’s and Sollecito’s mobile phones were turned off almost together around mid-evening on the night of the murder. There is a record of Sollecito’s being turned on again at daybreak the next morning, but apparently no record of when Knox’s phone was turned back on.

Also introduced this afternoon was the first of the testimony on the finding of Meredith on the floor of her bedroom (see Brian’s post Wednesday on this sad and apparently very telling scene).

There was crime-scene-officer testimony also on the finding of the large rock in Filomena’s bedroom. The defenses are reported to have put on a spirited show here, and to have again argued the possibility that an intruder could have got in via Filomena’s window.

Crime scene officers testified that a ready-made much-easier break-in route existed, by way of the balcony and the windows and balcony door out back.

On Sunday, our poster Kermit will be putting up new Powerpoints showing why this route is so viable. And again but even more-so how absurd Filomena’s window looks as a preferred point-of-entry.

Trial: Nick Pisa Of On-The-Ball Sky News Reports Early Testimony

Posted by Peter Quennell

Hmmm. Many officers testifying = weakness of the case? That seems a stretch.

And in the accompanying article on Sky News, Nick Pisa reports one officer’s testimony.

Mr Profazio, who now leads the narcotics division in Rome, told the court how he had been on holiday at the time of the murder, but immediately returned to work.

“I was away when I had a phone call from colleagues telling me that there had been a terrible murder. The body of an English girl had been found with her throat cut,” he said.

“I immediately headed back to Perugia and got to the scene at the same time as the forensic officers from Rome.

“A window was pointed out to me, which was broken and which was said to have been the point of entry, but I thought it was strange as it would have needed a superhuman effort to climb up to it.

“I noticed that there was a much easier way into the house at the back, via a terrace and a boiler, there was a chair and table on the terrace and it would have been a lot easier to get in this way.”

He also told the court how both Knox and Sollecito’s mobile phones had been switched off “practically at the same time” between 8.00pm and 8.30pm the night of the murder.

Mr Profazio also told the court that a search of Sollecito’s house had discovered a 30cm kitchen knife which was given to forensic experts for examination.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Trial: Friday Morning, More Testimony From Meredith’s Sad Friends

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for the first report by Richard Owen.

Ms Knox had spoken to someone on her mobile phone while at the police station, claiming that she had found the body, Ms Butterworth said. Ms Knox said: “How do you think I feel? I was the first to find her, it could have been me.”

Ms Knox had described the crime scene, saying that Ms Kercher’s body was “in the closet with a blanket over her. I would say wardrobe, I wouldn’t say closet, that’s why I remember it. When I went home I wrote the word down.”

 

 

 

 

Friday, February 06, 2009

Trial: Friday Morning Not A Good Start For The Knox Team

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for The Times’ report by Richard Owen. The main highlights:

1) Knox’s written admission that she was present at the murder is admitted.

The American accused of murdering British student Meredith Kercher suffered a setback today after a judge ruled that her confession to being at the scene of the crime could stand as evidence.

The statement Ms Knox was trying to keep from the court contains the same testimony as a controversial “confession” she made to police four days after the murder. In it she admitted to having been at the cottage the night Ms Kercher was killed. She said that she had covered her ears so as not to hear her flatmate’s screams and accused Patrick Diya Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner in Perugia, of being the murderer…

Despite the Supreme Court ruling, the judge in today’s trial decided that a memorandum Ms Knox had later written in English was admissible because it had been given voluntarily. It could be heard in the defamation case brought by Mr Lumumba against Ms Knox and which is being heard at the same time as the criminal trial.

2) Raffaele Solllecito may be opening up some space for himself here.

Mr Sollecito was granted permission to address the court, and said that he was “the victim of injustice” and “would never hurt a fly”. He said that he found himself in a “completely surreal and totally strange” situation since he was “not in any away involved” in the murder of Ms Kercher, adding: ” I am not a violent man.”

He said that his “sentimental relationship” with Ms Knox had only begun in September 2007 and stressed that he did not know Guede: “I never met him.” There had been a “lot of confusion” in the case, he said, and he appealed to the court to “clear it up”.

Added: Nick Pisa of the Daily Mail has noted: “As Sollecito gave his speech, Knox looked on clearly worried and biting her nails”

3) When police arrived the defendants seemed “surprised and embarrassed”

Mr Bartolozzi said that he had despatched a team of officers to the cottage, where they had found Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito already there. The officers had phoned him to report that Ms Kercher’s bedroom door was locked and he authorised the officers to break it down. Inside they found Ms Kercher’s body….

Michele Battistelli, one of the officers, said that he reached the cottage “after midday, at around half past twelve”. He found Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito at the house, and they appeared “surprised and embarrassed” at the arrival of the police.

They are accused of breaking a window to fake a break in. Mr Sollecito claims that he had already telephoned the Carabinieri, but the prosecution says that he only did so after the postal police turned up.

Police testimony on the finding of the two dumped cellphones was also heard. One was traced to Filomena Romanelli who later told police she had lent the phone to Meredith.The second phone was owned by Meredith.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Judge Micheli’s First Statement - The 10,000 Pages Start To Talk EDIT

Posted by Peter Quennell

Here now is the full 2011 Micheli Report kindly translated by Catnip for the Wiki and TJMK.

Judge Micheli’s dossier.

This below is from London’s Daily Telegraph. Click above for the full story.

In a dossier on the high-profile case, Judge Paolo Micheli said the 21 year-old’s murder was more likely spontaneous rather than pre-planned.

The judge, however, appears to agree with prosecution claims that the Leeds University student was murdered by more than one person.

He said that footprints in the flat showed there was more than one attacker in Miss Kercher’s flat on the night she was killed.

The revelations came after the Italian judge rejected one of her accused killer’s applications for bail…

Judge Micheli said he feared the two suspects could flee the country or commit another murder.

[Meredith’s] semi-naked body was found in the whitewashed cottage she shared with Miss Knox and two other students on November 2 last year.

She had been stabbed in the neck three times, and sustained more than 40 other injuries.

The judge attached weight to a kitchen knife found in Mr Sollecito’s flat which allegedly carried traces of Miss Knox’s DNA on the handle and Miss Kercher’s DNA on the blade.

He also said there were inconsistencies in Mr Sollecito’s accounts of where he was that night.

Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini told the court last week that Miss Kercher was killed when all three suspects tried to force her to participate in “a perverse group sex game”.

Judge Paolo Micheli has a terrific reputation as a judge, He did not of course devote only last Tuesday to reviewing the case.  That has been a full-time job for him for several months now. In particular, he will have read the 10,000 pages of evidence the police and prosecutor have submitted. Almost certainly again and again.

The partial evidence already out here is pretty telling to those who have worked so hard to put it all together.  And the 30-year sentence Judge Micheli handed down to Rudy Guede on Tuesday suggests just how overwhelming the full body of evidence must be. How it must really hang together.

And how it must evoke the intense agony of the final moments of Meredith Kercher, as she was seemingly tortured to death amid laughter and taunts. What is actually in those 10,000 pages will soon be common knowledge, by way of both the Knox/Sollecito trial in December and the Guede appeal thereafter.

Tick tick tick..