Friday, November 18, 2011

Facts Of Melania Rea’s Stabbing Death In Italy Last April Are Also Proving Hard To Get Straight #1

Posted by Peter Quennell





In Italy the rates for murder are low by global and European standards. It has the second lowest murder rate in Europe, more than Norway’s but less than Britain’s, France’s, Sweden’s or Finland’s.

Puzzling murders are very rare. Only a very small fraction of Italian murders are of women and and at least two-thirds of those are simple, obvious crimes by by husbands or other relatives or boyfriends.

So at any one time few puzzling cases involving the deaths of young women, which seem to cause special outrage, are in the news or on Porta a Porta or the other TV talk shows. Meredith’s death was one of the rare exceptions, and that certainly drove the police and prosecutors to go the extra mile.

Melania Rea’s death is another. She was killed in April in very strange circumstances about 90 minutes south-east of Perugia. Her murder and investigation and Meredith’s seem to have several points in common, included the dogged sorting-out of an apparent cover-up.

Melania, 29, and her 30-year-old husband, Salvatore Parolisi, came from a town between Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, where Melania now lies buried (image of her funeral below).

Corporal Parolisi was an instructor in the Clementi army barracks in the town of of Ascoli Piceno, where many female soldiers are trained. (Images of barracks and female soldiers training below).

Parolisis claimed to the police that on 18 April he was on a picnic with Melania and their 18-month-old daughter in a park on the south side of Ascoli Piceno,. He said Melania went off to look for a restroom and did not ever come back.

Two days later, an anonymous telephone tip from a phone-booth in a town nearby to a park called the the Mountain of Flowers, 10 kilometers south of Ascoli, led to the finding of Melania’s body in that park. The location is close to an army shooting range, and Parolisi later said that he and Melania had visited that park just 10 days before.

The police initially concluded that Melania’s body had been moved there after her death,  and so the jurisdiction for the case is the Carabinieri’s and local police’s back in Ascoli. 

The autopsy concluded that Melania had died slowly from loss of blood. She had suffered 32 stab wounds, some post-mortem, all of them shallow and possibly inflicted by someone not particularly strong.

There was extensive bruising to her face, and a syringe was stuck in her chest. There was no sign of sexual violence,

Self-infliction was immediately ruled out. A serial killer was briefly considered, as the nature of the victim and the crime and the condition of the body all resembled the vital facts of a serial killer’s victim called Rossella Goffo

No DNA or other physical evidence connected Melania’s husband to the crime. His story sounded sincere and it mostly hung together. After some initial questioning he was allowed to leave the barracks, and to return to his town near Vesuvius.

There both his own family and Melania’s family gave him a lot of public support. But then Parolisi (image in bottom two shots here) was recalled to Ascoli for more questioning, and the case began to get complicated.


























Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/18/11 at 02:37 PM in The legal followups

Comments

The husband did it they just cant prove it in court.

Posted by mason2 on 11/18/11 at 09:21 PM | #

I was reading some Italian articles about that case, and also the comments of the Italian readers. One of them wrote “I hope they won’t let Parolisi walk out from prison, like Amanda and Rafaelle”  😊

Posted by Terry on 11/19/11 at 12:14 AM | #

I thought I knew Italy well having run UN meetings in Rome and other cities, but the very low crime rate other than by immigrants was a big surprise. I presumed with the three mafias (now largely defunct) it would be at least average.

But our Italian lawyers have explained that it is still common in many towns to leave front doors unlocked. The daffy Nina Burleigh tried hard to see the downside of Italy being Catholic (actually France and most of southern Europe are Catholic, and nowhere are crime rates very high, but why should she know this?!) but this may be one of the upsides.

It may factor in to how very forgiving Italians tend to be, particularly of young people (“bambinos!”), and it shows in low sentences, kind treatment, and early releases. As a result (learn something here US) recidivism (repeat of same crimes) is low by any standards.

The occasional psychopathic murderers, especially when female, really throw prosecutors and judges in Italy for a loop as judges and juries tend to be so mushy. The Machine mentioned three female Italian psychopathic murderers in this post (scroll down) and they all got off pretty lightly:

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/more_on_motive_some_of_the_cases_of_nice_girls_who_killed_with_little_/

Above is not the first time we have posted an image of a huge crowd at a funeral. Surely not all those people knew Melania but they all turned up to pay final respects and will probably pray a long time for her.

Same with Elisa Benedetti also near Perugia who died lost in a forest under the influence. Catnip posted on Elisa here and one of the videos included the huge funeral.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/elisa_benedetti_another_sad_and_unneccesary_death_of_a_young_woman_liv/

Elisa and of course Meredith are also much missed.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/19/11 at 01:32 PM | #

Reading Knox’s prison diary we might assume that she had suffered some sort of traumatic amnesia about what she had been doing during the evening of the 1st and early hours of the 2nd November.

7th November – “Oh my God! I am freaking out now because I just talked to a sister and I finally remember. It can’t be a coincidence. I remember what I was doing with Raffaele at the time of the murder of my friend! We are both innocent! This is why.”

She and Raffaele had dinner, watched Amelie, had a long conversation about Raffaele’s cocaine taking in the past and his mother’s death. (Alarm bells ringing in the background)

“After our conversation I know we stayed in bed together for a long time. We had sex and then afterwards played our game of looking at each other and making faces….We fell asleep and I didn’t wake up until Friday morning”.

Nothing too difficult to remember, or forget, there one would think.

“ I was in my cell thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking, hoping I would remember…..Perhaps a minute after the sister had left I sat down again to write and try to remember and then it hit me. Everything came back to me like a flood, one detail after another until the moment my head hit the pillow and I was asleep the night Meredith was murdered. I cried I was so happy.”

No mention here of her having smoked a joint or taken any drugs.

The sister in question was a nun. Indeed Knox makes it sound as if, by remembering that she had been asleep, a miracle had occurred. A divine message, as it were. It is almost as if the notion of a beatification was already forming in her mind at this moment.

Still the detail after detail which came flooding back was an improvement upon what she said, three days before, in her e-mail – “……me and Raffaele went to his house to watch movies and after to eat dinner and generally spend the evening and night indoors, We didn’t go out.”

She must have already told the police a bit more than that!

Why, I wonder, the redundant “We didn’t go out.”? Well ……… now we know. She was asleep. Her being at the cottage when Meredith was murdered was all just a nightmare.

But what would have induced such trauma. Not a bad trip, it would seem.

Easy. Police torture!

Prayer answered. Sweet dreams.

Posted by James Raper on 11/19/11 at 07:57 PM | #

Honestly, how on EARTH can anyone believe such bad acting as the words of knox describing remembering everything after a nun leaves her cell.  Amanda sounds like she works for her own PR team. It’s not only disgusting but also DUMB. 
She really should seek a career in soap operas, Lumumba called her an actress but frankly, she is a bad one and it takes a huge PR campaign to obscure that fact from lazy minded public.

FOAs blame the Italian system and police for everything that happened to Amanda and that she isn’t responsible for Lumumba because of their “trama”. yes, the Police traumatized Amanda, by how?

We’re being asked to believe that hitting someone on the back of the head can throw them off this much.  That her memory was so jogged from this verbal interrogation and hit on the head that only after a visit from a nun long after the fact does she remember a night of SEX! 

I mean isn’t that what she claimed the police did?  Hit her head ONCE?  Cause to have that level of amnesia seems like she would have had to been hit with a hammer, not the back of a hand.

Posted by JenE on 11/19/11 at 08:31 PM | #

Every time I read something that girl wrote, or said, I find it very odd.  I don’t know what is going on with her, but there is something quite strange, including the underwear shopping spree in total disregard of what just happened to her ‘friend’.  It is as if, like Raphael said, she is disconnected from reality in some way.  I agree, there is no way she had some kind of trauma about that night to the degree that she would forget everything and then remember it ‘after the sister left’ and then cry in relief.  Was it more that she figured out that her alibi would be believed and therefore she cried in relief?  Was it that she is schizophrenic and has two personalities?  None of the others questioned about that night had this kind of bizarre reaction.  Even Rudy Guede.  I’m really disappointed that the slander trial was postponed as I thought we would have some more information this month.  Now we have to await the Hellman report. That will be interesting.

Posted by believing on 11/20/11 at 02:44 AM | #

Found a website which had many articles including a link to RS’s diary.  I found that very interesting.  I don’t think I had read it before.  He says this amongst other things (translated by Google into English). 

“Everything makes me lose totally confidence Amanda after continues lying ... I mean I know little but although I seem at capable of killing someone can be capable of lying to hide that she is relationships with people disreputable. Indeed beginning to think me Cornificius and hid me the impossible. But who cares, I am sincere and I will never do such a thing because I’m not down with certain meanness, if I’m with someone means that I like and if I’m not going to stay there longer, return. Needless to escapades; not like lie or myself nor others.”

http://qn.quotidiano.net/cronaca/2007/12/08/53233-amanda_meredith.shtml

I wonder if it is possible that he was not involved but it was only AK and RG?  But then how to explain the bra clasp?  Was his prison diary admitted as evidence?  He says straight-out that she was lying.

Posted by believing on 11/20/11 at 04:16 AM | #

Could it be that RS was not involved in the attack itself, but was only enlisted to help in the cleanup?

Just another thought.

Posted by sherrel on 11/20/11 at 09:54 PM | #

@believing
@sherrel

In his report, Massei is of the opinion that Sollecito is clearly involved in the murder of Meredith. He attributes one of the stabbing wounds to the type of pocket knife Sollecito always had on his person p.373 and 374. It may be possible that he was not involved in the ‘clean up’. According to his father he was in bed at 9.30 am, when his father rang him p.85. Knox had no knowledge of this phone call and Massei assumes that Knox was not at the flat at that time p.85. It would seem probable that the clean up occurred as soon as there was sufficient daylight, p 387. The plot to stage the break in may have been hatched during the early morning hours. The ‘break-in’ would have to wait for the clean up to be completed. First things first.

I doubt that Knox had a shower at the flat on the morning of November 2. In my opinion, Knox entered Filomenas room before the staged break in . (looking for something? an electric socket? I shall explain later). A mixture of Amandas and Merediths DNA was found in Filomenas bedroom by the forensics team p198. This tends to refute Amandas statement (p.91) that the first she was aware of the break in was when she returned to the cottage with Sollecito as she would have been wearing footwear and left a ‘wet shoe print’. Was Filomenas room selected as the staged break in because they had entered the room.

Also, I want to draw the following observations to other people for their consideration.  http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/PhotoGallery3.html

The hairdryers are not in the ‘hidden’ bathroom, they are in the laundry room (photo 8). There is no mirror in the ‘hidden’ bathroom (see all photos). There appears to be no electric socket in the ‘hidden’ bathroom to run a hair dryer from. There is a mirror and sockets in the laundry room (photo 1). How did Knox venture far enough to view the soiled toilet basin.(photos 8’9 & 10). She had no reason to go into the bathroom.

Did she use the hairdryers to try and eliminate evidence. In that case they may have been forensic evidence linking her to the hair dryers and she has used the ruse of drying her hair to cover herself. Were the hairdryers used to dry wet floors quickly so that they were not noticed and which would have aroused suspicion?. Was Amandas lamp used to check for ‘wet’ water under the bed? In all the bedrooms there are electric sockets near to the door where dryers could be used to dry the hall and the ‘english’ bathroom. (see photos) Was an hair dryer used to disguise a wet and freshly gathered boulder that had been used to break the window. Have a look at the boulder, it does not look as if it has been outside at all. Is it embedded in the bag so that it dries more quickly? (photo 5)

Posted by starsdad on 11/20/11 at 10:53 PM | #

Excellent points starsdad.  Knox’s obsession with the unflushed toilet gives her away.  On a normal day wouldn’t anyone have just flushed it?

I don’t believe Guede was involved in the cleanup, but I think he was aware it was going to occur.  I wonder if he fled thinking those two would get rid of the evidence he left?  Doubt it.  The bloody footprints leading out the door indicate Guede got out of there in a hurry and contradict all the care taken in moving and covering the body.  I think he fled knewing those two would likely blame him if he called the police.

And then Amanda had zero reason to be in the bathroom with the turd in the bowl in the first place, and if she did shower in there I think it’s crazy she didn’t flush - The pics are gross (and was the lid left up?)!


And here is a vid of Amanda describing her “trauma” at the hands of the police.  Notice towards the end how she tries to explain her confusion.

“I just said it because they were…”

“So they just asked me questions and I just responded…...I was stressed”

So many sentences where she just trails off…becaues the explanation is such a fail.  It always implodes back into the little girl voice, and proclamation of innocence.  Yet zero real explanation ever comes out as to why she allowed Patrick to go down and stay in jail for more than a minute.  No wonder they were forced to convict her on that one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_qaiMmfwk0

Posted by JenE on 11/21/11 at 01:03 AM | #

The comments about hairdryers, lights and water that would have been used during a clean-up have brought to mind the utility meters – the house would have meters for water, gas and electricity. If no one was in the house cleaning up, then the utility meters would register minimal or at least consistent usage from the time of Meredith’s death as there would be no change in electric, gas or water usage (even if the heating was on, any major surge in gas usage would indicate the use of hot water as the caldaia/boiler is used both for heat and hot water). 

Electricity is basically tracked by the minute as there are different rates based on consumption at certain times of the day thus the computerized system logs the detail. The standard billing is quite detailed about usage during certain hours but of course it is summarized for the billing period but I believe that a very detailed list of usage by day and hour can be requested from ENEL, the electricity provider. Hairdryers use a lot of electricity, the detailed ENEL meter reading can show a lot about the timing of activity in a house – lights and hair dryers etc.

I hope the police investigators reviewed the utility usage to determine the timing of activity in the house on the night of the 1st through midday on the 2nd as this would be great insight to any activity that occurred.

Posted by Patri on 11/21/11 at 02:55 AM | #

Thanks JenE

She sounds confused talking about being confused!

Talking of confusing! I have no wish to confuse anyone, but there appears to be electric sockets in the hallway itself in this video. At the very end there seems to be an electrical socket in the ‘english’ bathroom!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHuUGWN-eyE

Nevertheless, hair dryers may have been used to quicken the clean up operation.

Posted by starsdad on 11/21/11 at 03:04 AM | #

starsdad,

Great thought. I hadn’t considered the possibility of the hairdryers being used in the clean-up, but it would make and sense, and would have the additional advantage of leaving less streaks than a towel.

I did notice that you can’t see the toilet bowl from where the hairdryers and mirror are located, so unless Knox was in the habit of walking around while drying her hair, that story is simply false. My guess is the unflushed toilet was discovered when Knox and/or Sollecito cased the flat looking for a window to break.

Posted by brmull on 11/21/11 at 08:24 AM | #

P.S. There are at least three electrical outlets in Meredith’s room (including a power strip), at least one in the small bathroom, and at least one in the hall.

Patri- Most houses in the US still don’t have smart meters. Maybe Perugia was more advanced but I doubt it.

Posted by brmull on 11/21/11 at 08:43 AM | #

Off topic to this debate, but doesn’t Melania Rea look like an older Meredith?

Posted by TruthWillOut on 11/21/11 at 10:19 AM | #

@ brmull

The metering system in Italy is extremely advanced so for sure the electric energy consumption during that night is recorded. But there is a problem. Generally only the meters working in utilities connected to the high-voltage grid have enough memory to keep inside, for months, and make available, the “load profile” i.e. in detail the power and energy (different things!) imported every fifteen minutes. See IEC61036, IEC60687 and others, for example.

The low voltage white color meter you can now commonly find at home, in Italy, and for sure also there in Perugia, gives the energy and the maximum power every months – in 2007 I think only one time slot while now there are three: all the meters have a clock inside.

If we suppose at least an hair dryer and a washing machine working during the night, the electricity, high but not enormous, will be charged in the current month, then difficult to detect. But, in this case, it was the beginning of November and, after that night, the house remained uninhabited, in other words no consumption,  so something eventually strange could be read in the electricity bill.

I don’t know if the firmware adopted by Enel in that kind of low-voltage meter is able to record “secretly“ also the load profile; if not already done, lawyer Maresca should ask for the records to Enel…. I hope I was intelligible.

Posted by ncountryside on 11/21/11 at 10:55 AM | #

ENEL S.p.A., Italy is the global leader in SMART meter programs. Since 2005, all ENEL customers have SMART meters that, among other things, captures electricity consumption data throughout the day as different rates are charged at different times of the day.  There are various consumption plans available and the SMART meter manages this.

For example a student rental house would certainly have one of the lesser plans meaning that the kwt usage allowed at any one time would be quite low – go over your usage by using too many appliances at once and your main circuit breaker will ‘trip’ shutting down your electricity until you turn off the excess appliances. Many travelers to Italy assume these ‘power failures’ are due to poor or inefficient utility companies when in fact it is the exact opposite!  Italians are very aware of energy consumption and costs, no doubt why AC and clothes dryers are still far from the norm here.

Regardless of the specific plan, consumption data is transmitted to ENEL for monitoring electricity demand and for billing purposes – though summarized on the bill the raw data would be stored on the concentrator server.

Posted by Patri on 11/21/11 at 12:03 PM | #

Hello my friends. I am still very sad for the outrageous aquital.

What do I think? Politics got involved.Nancy Grace had predicted it a few days before.She said “Amanda will be aquitted, but not because she is innocent. But because America will put a lot of pressure on Italy”.This is the reason why the people,outside the court room,shouted: “Shame shame”. They understood that America was behind it.

The Knoxes knew too much.How come the aeroplane had already landed, before the verdict? How could they be so sure of the acquital? Who told them? Why was there a judge who has never done criminal cases? Very suspicious thing. I believe the verdict was written at the State Department in Washington. Did you notice that they could have given to Amanda up to 6 years for slander, or just 4 and half; but in that case she couldn’t leave. She would have had to wait 6 more monthe, but in 6 monthes the Suprime Court would have answered to the prosecutors appeal and, maybe, reopen the case. They wanted her to be able to escape before the Supreme Court decision.

Didn’t you understand that everything was organized? What a shame.If Amanda wasn’t american she was convicted this is the truth.  SHAME AMERICA.

Posted by Matteo_65 on 11/21/11 at 02:48 PM | #

On Melania Rea:

We are waiting on some help from our good friends in Italy who first kindly tipped us off to her case. (Thanks guys, you are proving more useful than ever these days. It’s great to have you.)  Hopefully next post in this series will be Tuesday. A problem is the mass of detailed reporting to wade through to see when certain things became significant.  Online there are around three thousand (yes 3000) videos.

Yes TruthWillOut, there is some resemblance to Meredith, who most Italians presumed was Italian until she spoke out and revealed she was not. And there are many familiar elements in the case. Her husband Salvatore’s lawyers are the same as for Guede (Biscotti and Gentile) and they even use the same terms at times. In his presumed cover-up Salvatore may have leaned things from studying the case in Perugia.

Part of why Italians feel so strongly for Melania is she had an 18-month-old little girl, now motherless and with Melania’s parents, who may have witnessed things that she shouldnt. Salvatore had one main girlfriend and possibly several others at the barracks and both Melania and a hard-case girlfriend Ludovica were at him heatedly to separate finally from the other.

Facts took a while to be unearthed and some are not clear still. As in Meredith’s case, there was a struggle to understand the timeline and the DNA and the mobile phone calls and the frontrunner motive which has morphed several times. Impressive work by police and justice officials though again there are various magistrates driving the bus each in their fashion.

It would seem that as many people in Italy consider Melania’s husband Salvatore to be guilty as think that about Knox and Sollecito. He is much better known than they were because he was not arrested for three months and in the interval was all over TV presenting his theories. His non-help and alibis that did not pan out sure slowed things down.  I agree with the first comment above. It will be tough to convict him.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/21/11 at 05:52 PM | #

Bjorn,

I agree with your analysis.  Individual cases may look weak but the country’s greatest strength is in its diversity that makes the system somewhat robust.

Posted by chami on 11/21/11 at 08:33 PM | #

Hello dear Bjorn,I have to apologize because I wasn’t clear in what I wrote.I am not angry with the americans people,but with the Governament and the media.I am not angry with the people,who are also victims of the lies of their media.If they could know the real truth,they wouldn’t trust the media anymore.I am also angry with my Governament,who did nothing to defend the police,prosecuteres and Italy itself.What kind of Governament it is if doesn’t defend it’s country?
I agree with you that Amanda is mentaly ill,and very lickly she will do somenthig bad,again.I hope not but I fear she will do again.

Posted by Matteo_65 on 11/22/11 at 12:48 AM | #

Appologies if this has already been covered.

According to Knoxs email (Massei p. 91/92) Knox and Sollecito were desperate to know if Meredith was in her room. Knox phoned Meredith 3 times that day, twice on the english phone and once on the Italian phone. 12.07 p.m. & twice at 12.11 p.m. (Massei p.323) All the calls were made from Sollecitos flat. Why did she not ring Meredith at the cottage to see if she could hear ringing? This is an important point. Their knowledge of what had happened would not allow them to think like constructive uninformed people!

Any normal person, who was unaware of what had happened to Meredith would have rung Merediths phones from outside the door of Merediths bedroom to see if they could hear the ringing to ascertain if she was in the bedroom. This would not have entered Knox and Sollecitos mind as they knew it would be futile. ( they knew Meredith was dead and the phones were not there) In view of this, the attempted breaking of the bedroom door ( if it happened ) is to do with the realisation that Amandas lamp is in Merediths bedroom.

(Massei p.323)  12.07 Knox phoned Merediths english phone from Sollecitos flat. Strangely, she never mentions it to anyone p.90 [82]. Knox was aware that Meredith was the only one who would be at the cottage that morning. Why did she not leave a text message (Somethings wrong at the cottage and I need u 2 get in touch)?

Also, I would like to draw peoples attention to these observations.

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/PhotoGallery4.html

Merediths bedroom door photos.
You will notice that there is a lot of blood on the interior door handle. Why is there no blood on the hallway door handle? One assumes it must have been touched, either to close the door or lock it. This is very strong evidence of a ‘clean-up’

Posted by starsdad on 11/22/11 at 01:38 PM | #

starsdad,

A list of clues from which the inference of a manipulation of the crime scene can be drawn :

1. As you say why no blood on the exterior door handle of Meredith’s locked door when clearly there is blood on the interior handle and frame?

2. Why was Knox’s Amanda’s spotlamp on the floor inside Meredith’s room?

3. Why no fingerprints on it?

4. Why was there a small square patch of floorspace free of blood in the middle of a pool of coagulating blood? This indicates that an object around which the blood had coagulated had been removed much later.

5. How could a long drip of blood, diluted with some water, have found it’s way on to the narrow hinge-side of the small bathroom door frame? The only plausible explanation is that this is the residue of blood mixed with water, perhaps on a towel, that had slapped against the adjacent outside face of the door and had been subsequently been wiped away in a motion that had flipped it over the edge from where it had then dribbled down.

6. Guede’s left shoe print was found in the blood by Meredith’s body and fading but visible prints in the corridor exiting. Even accounting for a rightside blood free step, there should be bloody visible prints of his connecting them. There weren’t. Did he fly or leap round a corner?

7. Likewise there was an absence of connecting prints to RS’s bloody footprint on the small bathroom mat, which itself is missing the imprint of a bloody heel on the adjacent floor.

8. It is evident that the blood on the bathmat was not as it was when the blood was originally deposited there. It is diluted and faded. Knox’ explanation would be that this is accounted for by her standing on the mat following a shower she says she took the next morning. But the footprint is on the edge of the mat and not in the middle which is where one would stand to drip dry, and in any event had she stood in wet on recently dried blood it is implausible that some of that blood would not have been smeared on the floor as she walked round and exited the bathroom. There was no blood on the bathroom floor.

9. No explanation was ever given by Knox as to why the washing machine had been working not long prior to the arrival of the postal police.

10. Luminol is a powerful presumptive test for blood that is not visible to the naked eye and as we know Knox’s invisible footprints were located with the use of luminol in three places (corridor and her own bedroom) and in each case Meredith’s DNA was found in the traces. Luminol can do this with blood that have been washed or wiped away.

11. The staged break in.

Massei noted pretty much all the above points but not, as I recollect, in such a way as to bring them all together like this. The exception was, of course, his handling of the evidence as to the staged break in.

If the Hellmann panel were lazy and just working off a reading of the Report at the beginning of the appeal, then the above observations and the inescapable logic may have been shoved to the back of their minds as a result of the (alternative) truth they were creating.

I don’t care how long the Supreme Court may take over the inevitable appeal provided that we have a a long and detailed reprise of all the evidence and evaluation of it.

Posted by James Raper on 11/22/11 at 05:31 PM | #

@bjorn

The door was locked with a key on the outside (Massei p.381) The keys have never been found.

@James Raper

Salient points!

When I look at Knoxs statements I notice that she refers to using things that may have been used during the ‘clean-up’ The shower, towels, hair dryers, the mop, etc…. She even mentions cotton buds. Now, if she mentions the innocuous cotton buds….....

......she does not mention brushing her teeth, the application of deoderants, moisturisers etc. I wonder if she was in the habit of using talc?
She does not mention them because they are not part of the clean-up.
The innocuous cotton buds were found to have both Merediths and Knoxs DNA and probably used when she cleaned herself after the murder.

Posted by starsdad on 11/22/11 at 06:40 PM | #

Should I have used insignificant rather than innocuous?

Posted by starsdad on 11/22/11 at 06:58 PM | #

@All,

I am interested in studying the experts’ statements in the court - can anyone point me to the english version please?

I am also interested in studying the Greg Hampikian’s statements on the DNA study /report and analysis.  Can anyone help me please?

I have read too often that “this will not be admitted as evidence in US court”- can anyone refer me to any authoritative site where the DNA standards are given?  I believe there are none but nevertheless.

Posted by chami on 11/22/11 at 07:34 PM | #

Latest news from Firenze: Mignini’s ruling overturned on appeal.
http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/cronaca/2011/11/22/visualizza_new.html_15027818.html

Posted by ncountryside on 11/22/11 at 07:59 PM | #

ncountryside,

Thanks but the google translation is pretty much gibberish. Can you translate this for us?

Posted by James Raper on 11/22/11 at 08:37 PM | #

@JenE, I completely agree with your statement about Knox’s obsession with the unflushed toilet. Even more telling is the fact that in her mail, she says that she could not see the shit the second time around because it had fallen down or something. According to Follian’s book, even RS mentions this specifically to the police, something on the lines of “my gf earlier saw that the toilet is soiled but now its not”. Now, if you look at the pictures of the toilet in question in the above link, it is literally staring you in the face. How could anyone think that its not there unless they are blind? There is only one explanation - she wanted to make sure the police don’t miss it to lend credibility to the burglar angle, there is no other explanation.

Posted by Sara on 11/22/11 at 08:39 PM | #

@chami

Ha, ha Greg Hampikian, the one who proved Knox/Sollecito innocent with science!

Some proAmanda followers must have used this site to access the Massei report as it is not available on their sites. If only more of them would read his report!

Why not make use of their resources.

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/PDF-Files.html

Other sites that may be useful to you

http://viewfromwilmington.blogspot.com/2011/09/likelihood-of-dna-contamination.html

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/09/judge-denies-request-for-new-dna-review-in-knox-appeal/1?csp=34news

http://www.kivitv.com/news/local/129431938.html

http://www.nwcn.com/home/?fId=131019638&fPath;=/news/local&fDomain=10227

Posted by starsdad on 11/22/11 at 08:44 PM | #

@sara

I completely agree. Knoxs and Sollecitos strategy was to report a burglary and that the police themselves would stumble upon the murder. That is why they showed the police the break-in, then the blood in the bathroom (the burglar had cut themselves entering the property) the toilet and emphasising that the door was wide open on their arrival.

The fact that there was a locked door, which Knox had said in her email had caused her to panic and was such a concern that they tried to kick in, is conveniently not a problem (‘Meredith always locks her door’)

Posted by starsdad on 11/22/11 at 09:02 PM | #

@ James Raper
Quick translation posted in proper thread.

Posted by ncountryside on 11/22/11 at 09:42 PM | #

ncountryside,

Molto apprezzato

Posted by James Raper on 11/22/11 at 11:48 PM | #

chami,

People say that US federal courts will not accept low copy number DNA but all I can find is that the FBI has recommended that it not be used.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100317/full/464347a.html

To my knowledge here is only one binding precedent for using LCN DNA in the US and that is in NY State.

The C-V report is at knoxdnareport.wordpress.com and there is a single-page version at PMF.

I think I gave you Hampikian’s letter before. He’s done lots of interviews, a number of which are on the web.

Posted by brmull on 11/23/11 at 12:50 PM | #

Great insights from starsdad and James Raper on the clean-up. I’ll add my two cents:

1. I’ve tried to avoid concluding that stuff was washed, because there is little evidence at this point other than a warm machine, but I’m finding it hard to explain how the rug in Meredith’s room avoided major bloodstains.

If you look here (warning—shows bloodstains)...

...those stains on the floor look like they were caused by blood seeping through the tassels on the rug. But I’ve looked at that rug from every angle I can find and there is no corresponding stain. (I think the hair in the bloodstain is a red “herring”—this is the area where Meredith brushed her hair).

2. Looking at picture rh124 above, there appears to be a blood droplet on the torn piece of newspaper caught under the leg of the chair. Given the unlikelihood of a blood droplet being deposited that far under the desk, it seems probable that the piece of newspaper—and therefore the chair itself—was pulled out significantly at the time of the attack. I don’t know what this means, but it’s worth nothing.

3. Someone’s probably said this before, but I think the electrical cord outside Meredith’s room is pretty interesting…

http://perugiamurderfile.org/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=21&image_id=3407

It appears to be a result of breaking open the door which slammed Knox’s lamp against the wall…

http://perugiamurderfile.org/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=21&image_id=3368

...and because the lamp was plugged into the power strip under the bed, the cord got ripped into the hall. Furthermore, since Meredith’s lamp on the bedside table was plugged into the same power strip…

http://perugiamurderfile.org/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=21&image_id=2027

...that lamp was pulled and fell onto the floor between the bedside table and the bed.

Hard to believe this Wyle E. Coyote scenario could have happened, but I can’t think of any other explanation.

Posted by brmull on 11/23/11 at 01:38 PM | #

Hi brmull and chami. Yes the Queens County Supreme Court okayed it. I did a search of FBI papers on LCN and the latest are cautiously positive about its use.

Chami, you have seen Fly By Night’s extended analysis, right?

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/analysis_suggests_the_conti-vecchiotti_dna_review_is_weak_tendentious_/

The US is behind Europe and maybe more emotional and less factual on LCN but it seems almost certain to become at least somewhat accepted as the techniques and machines get better and better.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/23/11 at 01:59 PM | #

James,

Some more comments on what your list of questions:

4. There definitely was something rectangular removed from the corner of the room, something that could not be washed. Perhaps it was posterboard or a cardboard box. Ron Hendry says it was the rug, but that seems unlikely—it’s not a flying carpet.

5. Someone or something brushing up against the edge of the bathroom door could have left that blood drop. I don’t think it was necessarily cleaned, but it could have been. I don’t know if outer surface of the door was tested for blood.

10. To clarify on the luminol prints and spots, from Massei: “one in the corridor, the L8, and one, the L2, in Romanelli’s room, were mixed ... others with traces attributable only to Amanda (the three found in her own room and indicated as L3, L4 and L5) and only to the victim (one found in Romanelli’s room, the L1).”

Posted by brmull on 11/24/11 at 12:49 AM | #

starsdad,

If Knox and Meredith shared the cotton buds it wouldn’t be surprising to find their mixed DNA on the box.

I don’t think Knox mentioned the buds in her early statements. She did mention it in her testimony, by which time she was well aware that her DNA had been found on it…

http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?p=80193

One question from Knox’s testimony that hasn’t been explained is why she decided to take a shower in the small bathroom that morning when she usually used the large bathroom.

Posted by brmull on 11/24/11 at 01:35 AM | #
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.

Where next:

Click here to return to The Top Of The Front Page

Or to next entry Facts Of Melania Rea’s Stabbing Death In Italy Last April Are Also Proving Hard To Get Straight #2

Or to previous entry A Famous Black Widow Confirms What MP Girlanda Told Us First: Italian Prisons Are Pretty Nice Places