Judge Massei's report on the sentencing of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito can be read online, printed out, or downloaded here

Category: P-Points scenes

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Powerpoints #13: We Now Examine The Compelling Evidence For The REAL Railroading From Hell

Posted by Kermit


If you have a Powepoint reader loaded please click here for our new show to open. On moderately-fast broadband you might have to wait three minutes.

Rudy Guede has already been sentenced for the maximum allowed (30 years) under “abbreviated” form of trial which he chose.

And in ten days or so, Amanda Knox and Raffaele may be found guilty and be sentenced to the maximum punishment allowed (life in prison) under their own form of trial.

Rudy Guede did not show the slightest true repentance, contribute anything respectful to the memory of Meredith, or provide anything close to a credible explanation for the night of Meredith’s attack.

Raffael Sollecito and Amanda Knox seem to have managed only to muddy the waters, insult the memory of Meredith, and do themselves much harm with their own various widely differing explanations.

I believe that all three seem to have shown an attitude which approaches arrogance at times. And in the case of Amanda Knox, in the days after Meredith’s murder and in her second day on the stand, she seemed at times almost gleeful.

Had Knox not felt so egged-on and overly-confident, she might never have taken the stand - which was possibly when she cooked her own goose.

Who actually encouraged Knox and Sollecito to take these seemingly disastrous positions?

I find it hard to believe that their Italian lawyers did. All I have ever heard about the lawyers for Knox and Sollecito (and for that matter about the prosecutors) is that they despise the antics engineered from the US. 

The impression gaining ground now amongst court observers is that the main factor in Knox’s attitude has been the many participants - some there as part of a plan and some seemingly self-appointed - in one of the most disastrous defense-support campaigns in legal history.

The concentric rings of participants that seem to have been busy appear to me to be these four following:

  • The immediate families. The Sollecitos did less than the Knoxes and Mellases to raise a storm, but they have already received negative payback in three ways: investigation of the whole family for releasing a video showing an uncovered Meredith to a Bari TV station; Sollecito’s sister losing her job as a carabinieri, and Sollecito distinctly no better off.
  • Gogerty Marriott, Inc. The Seattle public relations outfit hired by Knox’s family, which seems to have allowed or at least not stopped continued denigration of the prosecutor, the investigators and Italian justice generally, and repeated mis-statements and severe under-statements of the small mountain of evidence against Knox. Believed not to get along well with the group below.
  • The Friends of Amanda. A semi-formalized and shadowy group of supposed well-wishers and supporters organized with spokeswomen Anne Bremner, most of whom are in what seems a cowardly manner still unnamed and lurking in the shadows. Believed not to get along well with the prior group.
  • Finally, a group know on the discussion boards as The Entourage. A larger cloud of supposed supporters who aren’t necessarily part of the Knox Mellas family or the Friends of Amanda, and whose motives for supporting Amanda are wide and varied but often seem to revolve around money.

The outer circles of meddlers have seemed to want to prevent normal Italian processes to provide true justice for Meredith from ever playing out. Even very recently, one loudly threatened to take a guilty verdict straight to the top ranks of the US State Department (good luck with that one).

They seem to have antagonized just about every case-watcher in Italy, definitely the prosecution and police services in the case, and quite possibly the judges and jury. In fact, they seem to want to prevent the judges and jury from watching the media, presumably so that they don’t get affected by this train-wreck of a campaign.

These circles of advice may now be making it impossible for Amanda Knox if guilty to show any penitence or remorse, or to plead psychological impairment, or even come out with a truthful story that, if guilty, might actually get her some time off.

For a long time Knox has seemed to be pushed, guided and chaperoned along an inflexible path of limited options in which she seems to have no direct control herself or over the legal process playing out around her.

  • Why does an American woman on trial for murder in Italy need an expensive public pelations campaign aimed principally at an American audience?
  • Having decided to go ahead with this expensive PR campaign, why does Amanda’s family then complain about their financial woes on prime time television?
  • Why is this expensive PR campaign maintained when Amanda’s Italian legal team has stated that it is counterproductive?
  • Has the expensive PR campaign produced “positive” personal results for some of its participants in such a way that they may carry out actions or make statements which are neither here nor there for Amanda’s cause, but which benefit them?
  • Has the expensive PR campaign made it impossible (or too late) for Amanda to open up, contribute further information to the body of knowledge of what happened on the night of 1 November 2007, provide some closure to the Kercher family, and possibly ensure some leniency in any guilty verdicts which she may possibly receive for any of the charges against her?

One of the fervent supporters of Amanda, Chicago Private Eye Paul Ciolino, coined the expression that Amanda is being “railroaded”.

The true railroading to Hell of Amanda Knox seems to have been done by her own supposed supporters.

Posted by Kermit on 11/26/09 at 10:32 AM
Links in right column Crime hypotheses,  P-Points scenes,  The three defendants,  PR campaigns,  The many fall-outs
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Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Powerpoints #11: Countering The Spin Of The Recent Cottage Break-in

Posted by Kermit



[click image and wait, for the Powerpoints to load]

TJMK is getting a reputation for cool, precise, painstaking, and illuminating examination of the evidence made available.

We have frequently wanned others not to jump the gun or to mischaracterize known evidence when so very much of it is not yet in the open.

Just over two weeks ago, on 18 February, the Italian police discovered that in recent days intruders had broken their way into the girls’ apartment in the house on Via della Pergola.  The intruders had entered through the kitchen window to the north, opening onto the balcony.

This strange happening sparked many concerned questions, especially in Italy. For example, was the break-in perhaps related to the crime of 1 November 2007 and the trial now underway?

Nobody knows as yet. Police investigations continue. But it is just possible that it WAS related to the case. And if it was, there seem to be several possibilities as to why:

1) Proof of easy access for burglars?

The break-in could have been a demonstration of how a thief could very easily make his way into the cottage, similar to the notional “lone wolf” attacker that Raffaele Sollecito’s lawyer Ms Bongiorno has been promoting as the real perpetrator of the crime.

2) Proof of contamination of DNA evidence?

If an undetected thief could have entered the cottage between 2 November 2007 and the date when the bra clasp with Raffaele’s DNA was collected in mid-December, that could be an explanation for the unlikely DNA contamination which the defence teams claim might have occurred.

3) Modification or removal of remaining evidence?

The break-in could have taken place with the object of modifying or removing some remaining evidence which the police have not yet collected, evidence which may soon become significant for example in the course of a confession by one of the defendants or Rudy Guede..

4) A threat or message to the police?

The fact that during the break-in some knives in the cottage were arranged in a suggestive manner, and one was placed on a police envelope (apparently brought in by the intruders and unrelated to the previous evidence gathering) might point towards the intruders making some threat to the police, or trying to send some message to them.

This possibility becomes a bit more significant when one considers that the break-in occurred just before the resumption of the trial, when the 12 police investigators who were involved in the crime-scene investigation were all just about to give their testimonies before the court.

5) Unrelated possibilities to explain the break-in?

Perhaps it really was some sort of satanic rite. Or a prank or a hoax. Or it might simply have been some itinerants getting in to spend a night out of the extreme cold.

Defense spin has been attempted along some of these lines to suggest that the prosecutors and crime scene investigators really did botch the investigation.

The most outlandish of all claims was in the blogging section of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. That, because the perpetratorss of this break-in quite easily got in through the KITCHEN window it proves they easily could have got in through a BEDROOM window. And this despite the facts that:

These Powerpoints here set out to demonstrate that there is no possible parallel between this THEORETICAL break-in through Filomena’s bedroom and the ACTUAL break-in through the kitchen window.

If you have Powerpoint installed, click the image above. The show should appear in 30-60 seconds. If you need a Powerpoint reader please click here.  And if you’ve arrived half-way through, you might want to watch the previous Powerpoints first.

Posted by Kermit on 03/04/09 at 02:49 PM
Links in right column Crime hypotheses,  P-Points scenes,  Public evidence,  Other physical,  The three defendants,  PR campaigns
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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Powerpoints #9: Another Defense Theory That Isn’t Looking So Hot

Posted by Kermit


[click for larger images]

It looks like justice for Meredith will get a very strong push from what the mobile phones tell the court.

We don’t know all of this evidence. Possibly not by a long shot. The huge majority of assembled evidence remains sealed until trial, starting just over two weeks away.

A police wiretap on Amanda Knox’s mobile picked up her words “I cannot do it any more” to Raffaele Solecito, which resulted in her being taken in for questioning.

The investigation was almost foreshortened right about then. Triangulation of phone whereabouts seemed to confirm that someone Amanda Knox fingered as the perp was actually there near the house.

That defense strategy soon fell through.

The mobiles of Meredith, Knox, and Sollecito (Guede did not have one) all seem to have experienced some strange atypical usage and some suspicious switchings-off-and-on on the night in question.

And that formidable national police force, the Polizia delle comunicazioni, first started investigating when two mobiles surprisingly started ringing in a garden the morning after the crime.

That garden - that house -  is about one kilometer from Meredith’s house (you can just see it between trees near top-left above).

And less than 100 meters from Guede’s apartment and 200 meters from Sollecito’s apartment (in the center house below), by way of a small city gate.

The Sollecito and Guede defenses maintained that, because that gate is locked at night, there’s no way their clients could have tossed the phones in the garden.

So. Someone else must have done it. Both that and the crime.

Once again we use Powerpoints to examine the possibilities here.

If you have the Powerpoint software installed the show should open in 30 to 60 seconds. If you need to install a Powerpoint reader please click here.

All of the evidence Powerpoints can be observed here and here.

Posted by Kermit on 11/18/08 at 08:46 AM
Links in right column Crime hypotheses,  P-Points scenes,  Public evidence,  Cellphone activity
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Friday, November 14, 2008

Powerpoints #8: Another Defense Theory That Fails The Giggle Test

Posted by Kermit


One of the more bizarre dog-and-pony shows of the past few months was a defense attempt to show that a burglar may have entered by the window in the first image below.

Click for a larger image. It is the window of Filomena’s room. Broken on the night with a huge rock, found lying inside. (The prosecutors think it was probably all staged from the inside.)

If you ever see that window for yourself, you might find yourself giggling in disbelief. First, even a gymnast from the Cirque du Soleil would find it tough to climb up via the (normally closed) shutters far below.

And then reach up, open the window through a small opening in the broken glass (without cutting themselves) and so pull themselves up and inside. Leaving zero scuff marks and zero DNA.

And second, there is a total of FIVE much easier points from which to break in.

You can see two of them in the second image below: a bathroom window and a bedroom window. Both would have been in the dark. A third - a very dark balcony easy to climb up onto at night - is behind those olive trees to the right.

And there are two more ways in out the front: the front door, and the laundry-room window. A break-in via Filomena’s window is BY FAR the most difficult. Nobody - nobody - has come close to making it in by that way yet.

We now examine the window from the inside. From that angle too, well, it’s a pretty tough sell.

If you have the Powerpoint software installed, the show should open in 30 to 60 seconds.

Posted by Kermit on 11/14/08 at 07:54 AM
Links in right column Crime hypotheses,  P-Points scenes
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Monday, November 10, 2008

Powerpoints #5: A Graphical Tour Of The Crime Scene Itself

Posted by Kermit

Now this is a walk-through of the inside of the fateful house.

This tour of the scene of the crime includes shots of each room of the house, and the police investigators’ evidence markers, with some explanations of what they refer to.

Items seen here and the autopsy and luminol evidence left Judge Paolo Micheli very convinced that this crime involved several perpetrators, and not just the one.

If you have the Powerpoint software installed the show should open in 30 to 60 seconds. If you need to install a Powerpoint reader please click here.

All of the evidence Powerpoints can be observed here and here.

Posted by Kermit on 11/10/08 at 05:00 PM
Links in right column Crime hypotheses,  P-Points scenes,  Public evidence,  DNA and luminol,  Other physical
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Saturday, November 08, 2008

Powerpoints #4: A Very Odd House, In A Very Odd Location

Posted by Kermit


We here set the scene for what comes next, a detailed look at the inside of the house.

This is a presentation on the house and its neighborhood, and why they evolved in the strange way they did.

As a point of departure, take a look at this shot of the English girls’ house. This is where Meredith spent her last evening.

There must be a dozen apartments in that place.  Hard to imagine any prolonged violence ever taking place in there. Sounds of torture and depravity would travel very easily. Neighbors would be banging on the door in five seconds flat.

In contrast, Meredith’s house was really quite isolated. Arrive from any of three directions - east, west, and down from the walled city - and you chance upon it suddenly and quite counter-intuitively.

Its location below the street and the parking facility, and its almost fort-like, semi-soundproof construction, definitely seem like facilitating factors of the crime.

If you have the Powerpoint software installed the show should open in 30 to 60 seconds. If you need to install a Powerpoint reader please click here.

All of the evidence Powerpoints can be observed here and here.

Posted by Kermit on 11/08/08 at 09:41 PM
Links in right column Crime hypotheses,  P-Points scenes,  Public evidence,  Other physical
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Friday, November 07, 2008

Powerpoints #3: A Minute By Minute Visual Guide To The Events On The Night

Posted by Kermit


This now is a visual hypothesis of the events in Perugia that culminated in Meredith’s violent death.

Every media outfit covering the case might benefit enormously if they were to use such a recreation as their point of departure. Some have long been out of the starter box, of course, and some, especially in the US, have taken off in peculiar directions.

But our take on the media now is that they are becoming notably more cautious in face of 10,000 pages of still-sealed evidence and Rudy Guede’s conviction.

If you have the Powerpoint software installed the show should open in 30 to 60 seconds. If you need to install a Powerpoint reader please click here.

All of the evidence Powerpoints can be observed here and here.

Posted by Kermit on 11/07/08 at 07:43 AM
Links in right column Crime hypotheses,  P-Points scenes,  Public evidence,  Other physical,  The three defendants,  Rudy Guede,  Raffaele Sollecito,  Amanda Knox
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Thursday, November 06, 2008

Powerpoints #2: A Comprehensive Guide To The Relevant Locations

Posted by Kermit


Perhaps nothing will ever beat walking Perugia to understand where and how this utterly incongruous crime took place.

But here is a second best. A Powerpoint guide to the neighborhoods.

If you have the Powerpoint software installed the show should open in 30 to 60 seconds. If you need to install a Powerpoint reader please click here.

All of the evidence Powerpoints can be observed here and here.

The next Powerpoint show will offer a dynamic presentation of the events in these areas as they may have unfolded.

Posted by Kermit on 11/06/08 at 02:29 PM
Links in right column Crime hypotheses,  P-Points scenes,  Public evidence,  Known witnesses,  The three defendants,  Rudy Guede,  Raffaele Sollecito,  Amanda Knox
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Friday, October 24, 2008

Powerpoints #1: A CBS-Trashed Witness In Fact Looks Very Credible

Posted by Kermit


The CBS Network is right now at Number One in the American TV network audience wars.

CBS is one of the very best parts of the Viacom brand. It has come to be so liked, watched and respected in the US in part because it has long been dominant in the area of fine investigative reporting.

CBS’s Sunday-night 60 Minutes was for many years the highest rated of all American TV programs. 60 Minutes has blown open a number of scandals and crimes, and it has over the years been a huge force for good.

And CBS’s quality investigative reporting has long attracted premium rates for premium advertising. It makes very good money, for CBS and Viacom.

So why has CBS’s coverage of the Meredith Kercher case been so uniformly appalling? So biased, so emotional, so full of hyperbole and so FACTUALLY FLAT-OUT WRONG?

We frankly don’t know. But we continue our series examining past CBS reporting of the case, and revealing it for the almost consistent junk it has been.

First, take a look at the CBS video report at the top here - it’s briefly preceded by some advertising.

And then please consider this dissection of it.

It’s a large Powerpoint file, but if you wait a minute or two it should open. All of the Powerpoints can be observed here and here.

Posted by Kermit on 10/24/08 at 07:57 AM
Links in right column Crime hypotheses,  P-Points scenes,  Public evidence,  Known witnesses,  Reporting on the case,  Worst reporting
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