Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Three More Scenarios For The Night That Accord With The Timeline

Posted by Fiori


[Above: the platform where we believe Meredith first set foot in Perugia]

I seem to be one of a growing number aching to see true justice for Meredith to be the final conclusion to all this. 

Like many others here I am struggling to make sense of a reported pattern of events that is confusing and incomplete, and in terms of a motive possibly senseless.

And like some of the others here I have been trying to fit the facts as they emerge into a sort of a chronological framework. I draw from Michael’s excellent Master Timeline for the known overall chronology.

These below are three possible scenarios. They presume for the sake of argument that the defendants were in fact involved, along with Rudy Guede. The scenarios all have one common front end through to just after 9 pm, but thereafter, they differ slightly. And at bottom (under the “click for more”) I have included some annotations on key elements.

These scenarios may stand or fall as the trial moves forward, but I hope they inspire other scenarios so we may all conclude that the crime really has been properly solved and true justice for Meredith is widely perceived as a reality.

Common front end to all three scenarios

I am presuming that although the exact timing may have been vague (nobody knew when Meredith would arrive home) something involving Meredith was intended. Events involving the alibis and other statements, cell phones and the knife, and assembly at the house, simply seem too hard to explain otherwise.

1 pm: Meredith and Amanda Knox each have lunch in the cottage. Perhaps some annoying subjects are discussed. Perhaps Meredith comments on Knox’s behavior around the house and her male visitors, as only a thin wall separates their two bedrooms.

5 to 6 pm: Knox and Sollecito stroll around in the center of town and, by chance perhaps, they meet with Rudy Guede. They perhaps believe that Guede has some desire for Meredith. They make an appointment to meet Guede at 8.30 pm at the cottage, perhaps intending to edge Meredith into an affair with Guede as a payback for Meredith’s problems with Knox. 

6 to 8 pm:Knox and Sollecito are at Sollecito’s apartment and consider what might lie ahead for them that evening. There are the interactions with Lumumba and the woman who had asked for a lift to the station.

8:30 pm Guede arrives and waits at the cottage for Knox to arrive.

8:40 pm Mobile phones of Knox and Sollecito are switched off, with the seeming intention of preventing Knox and Sollecito from being disturbed or traced.

8:45 pm: Knox walks home to her cottage and admits Guede, and Sollecito follows shortly after with some mushrooms

8:50 pm: Knox and Sollecito and Guede are in the kitchen of the cottage, perhaps cooking mushrooms, perhaps dealing or using drugs, and perhaps all three waiting for Meredith.

8:56 pm: After saying goodbye to Robyn on her way home from the English girls’ house, Meredith calls her mother while walking, but her call is interrupted for some unknown reason

9:10 pm: Meredith enters the cottage, and is so displeased about the party in the kitchen that she goes on to her room, being demonstrative about not joining the party.

Now for three different possibilities

The scenarios below are actually not mutually exclusive, but they inscribe a different ordering and weighting of the information. These are my factual baselines:

a) The car breakdown in front of the gate makes it seems unlikely that Meredith was murdered between 10.30 and 11.20. So either Knox and Sollecito are IN the cottage during the whole hour from 10.30 to 11.20, or they are OUTSIDE the cottage the whole time.

b) The testimony of Curatola in the park seems credible, but what did he precisely see? “He said also that, although he did not watch them all the time “¦. He originally said that they were there from 9:30 through midnight, but clarified that they were there at 9:30-10:00pm and may have left around 11-11:30 and then returned to be there just before midnight” (quote from Stewarthome2000 on TJMK on 3/29). See my annotation below on this.

c) Cell phone activity: “.. Meredith’s cell phone made a call (not a phone call but a GPS call attempt) at I believe around 10:15 pm, 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” (quote from Stewarthome2000 on TJMK, 3/21)

In other places this information is confirmed and the time is given as 10.13. This is a crucial point, as it is then impossible that Meredith made the call while struggling. The scenario by Brian S on TJMK on 3/31 suggested “ The scenario suggests is that Meredith was struggling with her attackers from around the time of her aborted call at 10:13 pm until sometime just before 10:30 pm.”

I suggest that Knox and/or Sollecito were responsible for throwing Meredith’s two mobile phones away in the garden, as a) I feel it does not fit the psychology of Guede to think to take the cell phones, and b) the position of the call does not fit with Guede seen leaving the cottage at 10.30. If Guede had taken the phones, he would have had to leave the cottage around 10.05 pm, in order for the cell phones to be in the area of the other cell phone mast at 10.13,  See my annotation below on this.

The first scenario

9.15: Meredith goes to her bedroom, perhaps to try to go to sleep. She was known to be tired after a late night on Halloween.

9.20: Knox and Sollecito perhaps steal Meredith’s mobile phones now, to prevent her from calling the police during whatever the event was with Guede that they intended.

9.35: Guede hides in the toilet at a distance from Meredith’s room, to prevent Meredith from hearing that he remains in the house, while “¦

9.35: Knox and Sollecito perhaps now leave the house to create an alibi for themselves for the staged event between Meredith and Guede (presumably a rape) so they can afterwards claim that they did not know that Guede was still in the house after they left. Knox and Sollecito walk to Piazza Grimana (Curatolo as witness). They take with them Meredith’s cell phones.

9.40: Guede leaves the toilet and enters Meredith’s room, perhaps trying to lure/force Meredith into having relations with him.

10.00: Guede and Meredith are the ones heard arguing loud (Marlacchia as witness) and Meredith fights back as Guede tries to rape her. Guede tries to strangle Meredith to keep her quiet

10.00: Knox and Sollecito are up at Piazza Grimana, walking to and from the wall, discussing how things might be developing within the cottage. Then they split up.

10.10: Knox returns to the cottage, and finds Meredith wounded/struggling in the bedroom/kitchen; and a big fight, including the use of a knife, is still taking place.

10.13: Sollecito (leaving to pick up his car?) throws Meredith’s phones into the garden where the cell phones are found the next morning. As Meredith’s cell phone hits the ground and tumbles around, the call function is activated.

10.20: Sollecito arrives back at the cottage and more knives become involved

10.25: Meredith’s is stabbed fatally in the neck, screams out loud (Capezzali as witness, uncertain about the time)

10.30: Guede flees the cottages (Formica, witness)

10.30: Knox and Sollecito flee the cottage (diverse witnesses hear running)

10.35- 11.15: A car is parked in front of the house, blocking the entrance, and the breakdown receives assistance from the tow truck (Lambrotti as witness)

11.30: Knox and Sollecito are again watched by Curatola up at Piazza Grimana

The second scenario

9.15-9.35: The party develops out of hand, and Meredith is deadly wounded in the struggle with Knox, Sollecito, and Guede.

9.35: Knox and Sollecito leave the house and walk to Piazza Grimana (Curatolo as witness). They take Meredith’s cell phones with them. They discuss what to do. Problem here: where is Guede?

10.00: Knox and Sollecito split up, and Knox returns to the house.

10.00: Knox and Guede argue loudly in the house (Marlacchia as witness).

10.00: Sollecito picks up his car at home, and while driving”¦

10.13: “¦ Sollecito throws Merediths phones into the garden where the cell phones later are found.

10.15: Sollecito park his car in front of the cottage (to use the car for”¦.?)

10.30: Guede flees (but why wait until now?)

10.30-11.20: Sollecito is with Knox in the cottage. (doing what for one hour?)

10.35- 11.15: Car parked in front of the house, blocking the entrance, and the breakdown receives assistance from the tow truck (Lambrotti as witness)

11.20: Knox now screams? (Capezzali as witness)

11.23: Knox and Sollecito flee the cottage (diverse witnesses hear running on the stairs)

11.45: Knox and Sollecito are again watched by Curatola at Piazza Grimana

The third scenario

Note: this one does not fit the forensics timeframe for Meredith’s death which was put at between 9.00 and 11.00 pm

10.30: Guede departs from the cottages (Formica as witness) leaving Meredith behind, perhaps strangled into unconsciousness.

10.35- 11.15: Car parked in front of the house, blocking the entrance, and the breakdown receives assistance from the tow truck (Lambrotti as witness)

11.15: Knox and Sollecito enter the house “¦. 

11.20: Knox and Sollecito perhaps now kill Meredith (scream with Capazzali as witness)

11.13: Knox and Sollecito flee the cottage (diverse witnesses hear running)

11.45: Knox and Sollecito are again watched by Curatola at Piazza Grimana

Four annotations on the evidence

 

Annotation 1: The cell phones

One of Meredith’s cell phones was registered by a tower at 10.13 the night of the murder, in the area where they were both found the next morning.” .. one of Meredith’s stolen mobile phone picking up another cell tower at 10:13pm.” (Quote: Stewarthome2000 on TJMK, 03/22).

The signal from the phone was only picked up by one tower, and only for a short while. The records of the cell phone call reveal that it was only one call attempt, and only a very short connection was made (i.e. the phone was not for example active all the way from Meredith’s cottage to the garden, as a consequence of bumping around in somebody’s pocket).

So, we know that at 10.13 there was human activity involving the cell phone, in the area of tower 2. It would be relevant to know where, when walking from the cottage to the garden, one at the earliest enters into the area of cell phone tower no.2.

Considering the “˜story of the phone’ and the circumstances ““ and we must assume that the “˜user’ of the phone at 10.13 knew that the phone was taken from Meredith - it seems less likely that someone tried to make a “˜real call’ with Meredith’s phone than that it was accidental.  It seems likely that 10.13 is the exact time when the phones were thrown into the garden.

Annotation 2: Who disposed of the phones?

The time 10.13 is in the middle of the forensic timespan for the estimated time of death, which makes it highly relevant to know who threw the phones in the garden. Formica and her friend testified that they most likely saw Guede on the stairs leaving the cottage:

“It does seem that she most likely saw Guede leaving the crime scene, at between 10:00 and 10:30 pm. This also fits with one of Meredith’s stolen mobile phone picking up another cell tower at 10:13pm. If Guede took the phones, it seems to me that this helped the Knox and Sollecito defenses more than the prosecution.” (Quote: Stewarthome 2000 on TJMK, 03/22, 09.47).  But had Guede said anything about taking the cell phones?

How long time does it take to walk from the cottage to the garden? “That garden is about one kilometer from Meredith’s house”. (Quote: Peter Quennell on TJMK, 11/18, 09.46). My tentative estimate is 10 minutes, up a slight hill if it was Via Garibaldi, where the pavement is smooth.
 
So if the phones were thrown into the garden at 10.13, and if was Guede who took the phones, then he would have had to have left the house at approximately 10.03.

But if Guede left the cottage at 10.03, Formica and her boyfriend must have encountered Guede very close to 10.05 - but that does not seem to match with what Guede himself has said, that he left the house shortly before 10.30.

Nor does it match with what the Formica couple have said - that they saw the broken-down car as they reached the bottom of the stairs. The car broke down around 10.30. “Sometime just after 10:30pm a car containing four visitors from Rome broke down outside the driveway and gate to Meredith’s house on Via della Pergola.” (Brian S on TJMK, 3/31)

From all this it seems that Guede was not the one that disposed of the cell phones

It also seems that Guede is a rather disorganized person. The cool calculation of taking the cell phones not for their use, but for the disturbance of a crime scene, seems more to be the MO of Sollecito.

Annotation 3: The implications of Curatolo’s testimony

The man in the park, Curatolo, who seems to be a very credible witness, stated that he saw Knox and Sollecito in Piazza Grimana:

“‘He’ clarified that they were there at 9:30-10:00pm and may have left around 11-11:30 and then returned to be there just before midnight” - and -“when I sat on the bench to read I looked at my watch and it was just before 9:30pm”¦.and I saw them shortly afterwards.” (Stewarthome2000 on TJMK, 03/29)

“Around 9:30 on the night, while he was reading a newspaper, he looked up and saw the two defendants sitting on a low wall near a streetlight. At times the boy got up and headed toward the outside railing in the direction of the cottage in via della Pergola. He saw the two together up to 11:30 pm or so.”

“I was sitting on the bench,” Mr Curatolo said, “I was reading the Express. I looked up four to five times and each time I saw the two together. I do not like to take advantage of others. I state that what I say do not say this to hurt anybody.” (Peter Quennell on TJMK 03/28, )

Besides in this testimony quoted above, Curatolo is in all the articles I have seen repeatedly quoted as having seen Knox and Sollecito just before midnight, and this part of his testimony is quoted in the articles in a way that suggests that Knox and Sollecito havd been away from the piazza in the meanwhile (”˜they were entering the piazza from above’).

So whereas the articles clearly indicate that Curatola stated that Knox and Sollecito had been away from the piazza ““ that Curatolo had not seen Knox and Sollecito for a while just before they re-appear around midnight - the same “˜notice of absence’ is not similarly articulated with regard to the previous period, between 9.30 and 11.30.

I can, from the above quotes, interpret C in more than one way. He could have seen Knox and Sollecito:

a) More or less continuously from around 9.45 to around l1.15 ““ and again at around 11.50

b) From around 9.30 to around 10.00 ““ and again around 11.00 - 11.30 ““ and again at around 11.50

c) On and off from 9.45 to 11.15 ““ and again after 11.50.

Before commenting on the times I would like to comment on some other things I find valuable in C’s testimony:

1) It seems that Knox and Sollecito were together from 9.30 onwards that evening.

2) They were not in Sollecito’s flat

3) That Knox and Sollecito were watching the cottage (Sollecito got up several times and looked over the railing towards the cottage), and in doing so it demonstrates that Knox and Sollecito were well aware that something tricky was going on in/around the cottage.

(That is one reason why this testimony from Curatolo, despite it initially seeming to exonerate Knox and Sollecito by removing them from the scene of the crime in an important period of time, is not really such a good alibi!)

It could be important to know at what time Sollecito started to look over the railing: Was it during the period when the driveway was blocked - or was it before 10.30? What were they observing? Were they waiting for Guede to leave the cottage, or for the car to be towed away?

From Curatolo’s statement the following three time possibilities are suggested:

a) Knox and Sollecito left the cottage around 9.30 and returned to the cottage after 11.15. They left the cottage again when the scream is heard around 11.30, to be seen in the park at 11.50.

b) Knox and Sollecito left the cottage around 9.30 and could have returned to the cottage before 10.30, and then left again around 11.15 shortly after the car was moved, to be seen in the park at 11.20, and could then have returned to the cottage to flee after the scream, timed at 11.30, to be seen again in the park at 11.50. (This seems too many movements in and out of the cottage!)

c) Knox and Sollecito left the cottage around 9.30 and could have returned before 10.30 ““ and then leave the cottage again 11.30, returning to the piazza 11.50.

So, extending from Curatolo’s testimony, it seems likely:that:

a) Knox and Sollecito arrived at Piazza Grimana around 9.30-9.45, before Meredith is attacked (blood on their clothes might have been noticed)

b) Knox and Sollecito re-enter the cottage either around 10.30 or 11.15

c) Knox and Sollecito leave the cottages around 11.30 when the scream is heard

Annotation 4: The attack and the deadly wound

Is it possibly that the attack/fight and the deadly wound were separated in time?  Could there have been different attackers at different times? I have taken this from Miss Represented’s lone-wolf post:

“The most common method of ensuring compliance is to render the victim unconscious. Unfortunately due to the amount of force employed when administering blows to (often) the head, the victim usually suffers horrendous blunt force injuries which more often than not result in serious injury or death. Meredith had no such injuries and any injuries she did sustain came much later than the initial attack.”

“These types of offenders will often sexually assault or rape the victim after death, the medical examiner has stated he believes Meredith was in all likelihood sexually assaulted before she was seriously injured and later killed, this itself indicates some kind of restraint would have been necessary..”

“Before she was fatally injured the medical examiner also determined that Meredith had been strangled.”

So there is a possible further sub-scenario:here, though not one that Judge Micheli considered:

Knox and Sollecito set up an attack on Meredith, and leave the cottage with Meredith’s cell phones shortly after 9.30, leaving Guede behind, knowing full well that he may assault Meredith.

They leave the house to create an alibi for themselves, so that they can afterwards claim that they did not knew that Guede was still in the house after they left. They are staging a rape not a murder of Meredith.

Knox and Sollecito throw the cell phones into the garden at 10.13.

Marlacchia hears a loud arguments between a man and a woman, at around 10.00, indicating that a fight/attack takes place then, which fits with that the attacker(s) leaving the cottage just before 10.30.

Knox and Sollecito re-enter the cottage either just before 10.30 or soon after 11.15 and find Meredith strangled and deadly wounded, but not dead ““ maybe attacked with Sollecito’s knife which they used earlier the same evening in the kitchen to prepare the mushrooms.

Meredith receives the deadly wound at approximately 11.30 that night.

Comments

Fiori has introduced herself previously in her incisive comments on TJMK as a visiting academic in Florence who teaches students, including women students, who are as eager and smart and vulnerable as Meredith was nearby in Perugia.

Fiori’s scenarios represent a fairly tight fit with the many previous scenarios we have posted. 

Those include the extensive and well-argued scenario in Judge Micheli’s report, plus the various Powerpoints by Kermit and Nicki, plus the text scenarios of Brian (several), Arnold (also several), and most recently Finn.

More contributions would be most welcome.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 05/20/09 at 08:11 PM | #

Was there an aborted call to 911?

I remain confused at to the nature of the aborted GPS call.  Here’s why.  After the World Trade Center attacks the FCC mandated that by 2005 all cell phones have the capability of determining where they are.  One way of doing this is for them to have an imbedded GPS chip that receives radio signals from some of the GPS satellites orbiting the earth.  Another way is to determine the rough location by triangulating the signal using different cell phone towers

This information is usually not accessible to the user and typically stays imbedded in the phones memory even after it is turned off.  It is only used when the phone is used to call 911 (or its equivalent).  A 911 call triggers the chip or accesses the memory and the coordinates are sent to the local Public Safety Answering Point or PSAP.  This system is generally accurate within 500 ft.

While the only way to turn this tracking off is to shut down the phone, it is not actually activated unless you call 911.  If you consider the nature of mobile phones, they are continually connecting to various towers. Records are kept of every tower with which a phone communicates.

This is what is confusing.  A GPS call is way different than the normal pinging of cell towers.  In essence, a GPS call is a call to 911.  To me, an aborted GPS call is an incomplete 911 call wherein which the phone may have been turned off before the call was complete but the GPS data was still sent.  There are commercial services that can use this ability but I can’t imagine a student’s location being constantly tracked.

The obvious question at this point is who dialed 911 and hung up before the call was complete?  Why was it done at 10:15 from the garden?  I would have expected that an aborted 911 call would have received considerable attention, which this did not.  I do not know if the phones were turned on and their progress tracked from the cottage to the garden but I do not recall this being mentioned either. 

An aborted 911 call out of the blue would mean the phone was turned on for an instant, 911 dialed, and the phone turned back off.  If true, this is just another mystery.

Arnold Layne

Posted by Arnold_Layne on 05/21/09 at 05:34 AM | #

Dear Arnold,

The information I have about the call at 22.13 is mainly from Stewart2000 (TJMK), and I have not seen any verification of the specificity of the call being a ‘911-call’ in the various interpretation of statements made in the court.
Also I dont know from which of MKs two phones the call was made. Italian phones have a lot of pre-coded numbers: emergenza caldo, polizia, segreteria this and that, servizio clienti, dottore, etc. etc. - depending of your choice of supplier. Most of these numbers could likely by foreign journalists be translated into a ‘911-call’, and any of these numbers can be called accidentally if your phone is not key-locked and it is bumping in a back or in a pocket.

Best,
Fiori

Posted by Fiori on 05/21/09 at 01:28 PM | #

Fiori,

I agree completely with you and that is what contributes to my confusion. For privacy reasons cell phones do not typically reveal their location.  This is especially true back in 2007.  They only time they transmit their location is when 112 or 911 or whatever is dialed.  Is it possible the perps called 911 to make the police think Meredith was still alive not realizing that the location of the phone was being made available to the call center.

Some time lines are using this aborted call information and I would like to see more confirmation that it actually happened before jumping to a conclusion. 

AL

Posted by Arnold_Layne on 05/22/09 at 02:08 AM | #

Grazie, Fiori per lo straordinario lavoro 😊
A lot of work yielding very valuable insights and thoughts inspiring.

I wonder if the witness who heard the man and woman arguing has reported any particular accent? I’ve been thinking about it because Rudy has a distinct Umbrian accent, and Meredith, even if her Italian was fluent, must have had an anglo accent, very easy to tell by any native Italian speaker. I think it would be impossoble not to recognize an English accent so if the witness didn’t report it, I think the two people arguing were not connected to the case.

Posted by Nicki on 05/22/09 at 03:00 AM | #

Hello to everyone,

Thank you so much for your ongoing efforts to provide scrupulously investigated and considered information about the tragic murder of Meredith.

I have a question for the group. It’s not directly related to the discussion of the timeline on the evening of November 1, but the following day. I haven’t seen this written about anywhere, perhaps because it concerns Meredith’s family and information only they would have.

Apparently, Meredith’s family, particularly her father, were desperately trying to contact her when they learned that a British student had been murdered, and, of course, were not able to reach her by phone. Her sister has said that she was planning to surprise her mother for her birthday and that was the purpose of the trip back to England that Meredith intended to take on the morning of November 2.

My question is, if some family members knew she was coming and expected her to arrive at the airport at mid-day and she never arrived, did that not trigger the first alarm? I haven’t heard anything about them trying to contact her because she didn’t arrive on a scheduled flight, only that they were trying to contact her because they had learned of a murder.

Perhaps the answer will be revealed in her mother’s or other family members’ testimony.

Posted by wayra on 05/22/09 at 05:12 AM | #

I believe the quote by Stewart of “GPS call” is a typo, it should read “GPRS call”. GPRS is a digital service used for accessing internet or WAP sites from mobile phones.

AFAIK, within the EU there is no requirement for mobiles to keep track of location or provide location in emergency calls (112 is the standard EU number). Some phones do have GPS, but I don’t think this is linked to emergency calls as in the US.

Meredith used her phone to access an internet banking site, which is a possible explanation given for the GPRS call. She may have had this site in her contacts list. I think if a call to an emergency number had been made, it would have been described as an emergency call, not a GPS call since we don’t use that system.

Posted by bobc on 05/22/09 at 11:39 AM | #

Bobc

Thank you, your observation that this was a request for data help to eliminate the possibility that it might have been an intentionally place emergency call.

Fiori

  Your deductive reasoning is right on target.  I think we should recreate all scenarios excluding this event.  There are at least three reasons for doing this.

1) The statement by StewartHome2300 says:
‘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.’

2) As a data point it has not been mentioned in any post or news article anywhere other than the 3/21 post on TJMK;

3) It doesn’t make any sense that someone trying to throw a cell phone into oblivion would turn it on before throwing it away.

This seems like a potentially incorrect data point so let’s discard it unless it becomes significant.

Arnold Layne

Posted by Arnold_Layne on 05/26/09 at 05:32 AM | #

Wayra,

I believe that Meredith was planning on returning for her mother’s birthday the following weekend (Nov. 9th).  Stephanie Kercher mentions the plans in the Family Statement she made on Nov. 6th. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/20080641291672

Posted by chira385 on 05/27/09 at 12:19 AM | #

chira385,

Thank you very much for the clarification. I thought I read somewhere that one of the reasons she left her friend’s place early on the evening of November 1 was that she had a 10:00 a.m. flight to catch on November 2. Sounds like that was incorrect.

Many reports have indicated that she left early because she was tired after she and her friends had been out so late for Halloween the night before.

Posted by wayra on 05/27/09 at 02:36 AM | #

Ciao a tutti, ma particulare bobc e AL,

Thanks for reading my piece and for all comments: I don’t have English as my first language (and neither Italian, as a matter of fact, but Im presently studying it), so occasionally parts of meaning of your writing can be distorted for me - please tell me if I misunderstand you or my translations is wrong.

As presented above, my scenarios are generated from ‘ranking’ witnesses and web-statements re. reliability, and Stewart2000 seems to me generally to be very precise, but your comments made me try to trace further the statement of the 22.13 call.

Below is the result of my investigation.

There seems to be three different times where this call is brought up in the case: very early in the case, i.e. in November 2007, then in October 2008, where RSs lawyers issued a statement involving reasoning about this call, and again during the AK/RS trial, in march 2009, in statements from Latella (Perugia police) and It-experts.

I have found information about the call on these pages – chronologically ordered:

“One of two cell phones used by MK connected to the internet for 8 seconds at 10.15 on the night of the murder, and the other received a call five minutes after midnight that was not answered. (Times ON-line, 19.11.2007)

“According to Bongiorno the call that started from Meredith’s English cell phone at 10.13 pm detected the presence of the mobile phone in the garden where it will be found the day after. This means that at about 10 pm the murder was already consumed and the killer was already going to throw the cell phones away. Which would set Raffaele, and by consequence Amanda, out of the games.
The call was the one made to the bank. A call that couldn’t be successful because dialled the way the number was memorized, without the +44 code of England. A call which could have been made even by mistake. But it was successful, instead, to show the cell in which the phone was. Bongiorno is sure that the cell can only be the one of the garden.

She [Bongiorno] wasn’t in the case at the time of the bar keeper, when the problem was that he was at his pub but the system recorded his presence in the cell of via della Pergola. So we know that this cell records are not that sure (when you are in a town and they are little) and they may interact with each other. Only a double-checked verification can tell us if it’s really like this. In the case of the bar keeper’s cell phone it was necessary that the phone company studied the data to explain why his cell phone appeared like being at via della Pergola while it was at the pub.” (From: “Raffaele was watching cartoons”; Perugia Shock, Friday, October 24, 2008.)

“One of the stolen phones was used at 10.13pm, when it was already in the garden where it was discovered the next morning. At that time, Mr. Sollecito’s team claimed, he was still watching a French film he had downloaded earlier that evening. (From: “Knox and partner blame the ‘third man’ for Kercher killing”, Peter Popham, Sunday, 26 October 2008)

“Inoltre, secondo i legali di Sollecito, il cellulare di Meredith, quella notte, alle 22.13 ha registrato una connessione Gprs impegnando la cellu Wind vicino al punto in cui furono poi lasciati dall’assassino i du telefoni della giovane inglese. Ragion per cui deve dedursi che a quell’ora la povera Mez fosse già morta e che il telefono fosse in manoal suo assassino. Può desumersi quindi che tutta l’azione omicidiaria si sia svolta tra le 21,08 e le 22,13.” (From: Francesco Schiano, http://www.fondazioneitaliani.it/index.php/Delitto-di-Perugia.-Ultime-battute-in-vista-della-decisione-finale.html, 27.10.2008)

Translation: Besides, (according to) the 2 lawyers of Sollecito, Merediths cell phone, that night, at 22.13, was recorded a gprs call picking up the Wind cell (mast) which is (covering) the neighbourhood of the place where one later, after the murder, found the English phone. Considering this, we must deduct that at this time Mez was dead and the telephone was in the hands of the killer. Maybe we therefore (can conclude) that the time of killing is between 21.08 and 22.13.
 
“Meredith: Dal suo cellulare la notte del primo novembre alle 22.13 é stata fatta una connessione gprs, ovvero una connessesione dati de pochi seccondi, con la sua banca inglese. Connessione che potrebbe essere anche ivolentaria perche puo partire semplicemente digitanoo un tasto.
Alle 00.12 sullo cellulare de Meredith arriva una telefonate ma il telefono intercetta la cella de Via Speradino, dunque il suddetto il telefono non era pui in Via della Pergola, ma si trovare gia nel giardino della casa della signora dove fu trovato il mattine dopo.” (Perugia News, http://www.perugianews.it/it/processo_mez_cellulari_spenti_la_notte_del_delitto.html; Lucia Caruso, 21.3. 2009)

Translation: On MKs cell phone, Nov. 1, 22:13, there was a data connection (connessione gprs) for a few seconds, with her English bank. This connection could be unintentional because it can be started by simply typing a key.
At 00.12 on Merediths cell phone she received a phone call but the call was intercepted by the cell covering via Sperandio, so this phone was no longer in via della Pergola, but was already in the garden of the lady of the house where it was found the morning after.

“Call to MKs bank with no code access and an internet connection of about 8-9 seconds (2 “error” calls)... As in the opinion of inspector Latella, this could be the result of a messy touching of the phone keys.“ (Reported on: http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/archives/164738.asp?page=4: Yummi at 3/23/09 4:22 p.m.)

”… defendant lawyers however do not renounce to wage battle by challenging, in particular, the possibility that the mobile belonging to the British girl Meredith could have been used (by the murderer) at 20.56, 21.58 and at 22,00 of November the first, as it comes out by the attempts of usage that were signalized from the devices.” (Candace Dempsey’s block: Posted by Yummi at 3/23/09 6:26 p.m. A translation of an Italian snippet from ‘Quotidiano’.

My conclusions:

There was a 8 second call trying to connect to Meredith’s bank at 22.13. The call 22.13 was most likely made by Merediths (English) phone, as I find it reasonable that Meredith had coded her bank-connection numbers into her own phone and not into Filomena’s (Italian) phone.

I don’t find it reasonable that someone tried to use her phone for a deliberate call, so there must have been some other kind of physical actions involving the phone at this time. That could have been throwing the phones into the garden where they were found later; i.e. someone throwing the phone accidentally pressing a key, or the phone rolling around, falling down onto the ground pressing a key.

Though, as mentioned by Frank on ‘Perugian Shock’ (above), it is not a ‘cold fact’ that the phone was in the region of the Via Sperandino (the Wind mast), as there as been incidents where positions of phones has been messed up, due to the close position of the masts in Perugia. BUT as it was possibly to clear up the wrong registration of the position of PL’s phone, it is supposedly also possible to investigate this. If that has been done, I don’t know, but as this has been made an issue by the defence of RS, I suppose that the prosecution’s investigators would have contradicted Bongiorno if she was wrong.  (But, as we seemingly know that RS was not watching ‘Amelie’ or doing computer work, this issue does not exonerate RS, neither from throwing the phones, nor from being involved in the murder.)

Best, Fiori

PS: I would highly appreciate if someone - Nicky? Miss Represented? - had comments upon my suggestion about the possibility of the murder occurring in two separate stages.

Posted by Fiori on 06/01/09 at 12:05 AM | #

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