Category: 13 AK persona hoax

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Bizarrely Jubilant And Way Too Exposed Amanda Knox Again Fails Liar-Analysis Tests

Posted by The Machine

Pamela Meyer, a highly respected liar spotter and fraud spotter, explains how she knows if someone is lying. TED Talks applies the telltale signs to Amanda Knox.

This brilliant video needs to be promoted as much as possible on social media websites. Most people can’t be bothered to read the official court reports, but they will watch a fascinating TED talk that last a few minutes.

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

“Americans Are Paying Knox $10,000 A Gig To Trash Italian Cops - Smart Move Liberating Her”

Posted by Peter Quennell

1. Americans Knox Has Hoaxed

So the news is out to considerable disgust that Knox is being paid up to $10,000 a gig plus costs to lie about her case.

Now she is going global on Netflix’s tail and seeks to hoax bleeding-heart Irish via another Kabuki-style paid interview. Knox has lied to and defrauded these groups so far.

• Roanoke College
• YPOG Pacific Northwest (Walla Walla)
• Westside Bar Association “Injustice Seminar”
• Kentucky Bar Association Annual Convention
• YPOG Beverly Hills
• Florida Innocence Project “Gala”
• Palm Beach Bar Association “Law Day Luncheon”
• YPOG Pacific Northwest (Seattle)
• American Psychology and Law Conference
• Windsor Law’s “Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted Special Event”
• Aegis Living EPIC Annual Conference
• Union League Club of Chicago
• Loyola Law “Life After Innocence Annual Luncheon”

That adds up to thirteen, a lot of people Knox has directly hoaxed, to say nothing of her book and of the millions Netflix has hoaxed. Plus the presumed Irish lovefest this weekend.

2. The Misleading Marketing Pitch

Here is the pitch for Knox on the All American Speakers site.

Amanda Knox was tried and convicted for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, who died from knife wounds in the apartment she shared with Knox in 2007. Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were both found guilty of killing Kercher, receiving 26- and 25-year prison sentences, respectively. In October 2011, Knox and Sollecito were acquitted and set free. In March 2013, Knox was ordered to stand trial again for Kercher’s murder; Italy’s final court of appeal, the Court of Cassation, overturned both Knox’s and Sollecito’s acquittals. Knox and Sollecito were again found guilty of murder in February 2014, with Sollecito receiving a 25-year prison sentence and Knox receiving a 28.5-year sentence. The Supreme Court of Italy overturned her and Sollecito’s convictions in 2015.

3. How That Pitch Misleads

The marketing of Knox as cash-cow is replete with wrong implications, to get the paying customers quickly on the hook before it occurs to check with Italy. Here are several:

1. “There were several trials and Italy just kept trying”

Untrue. In fact (1) there was ONE very definitive trial, in 2009; (2) Knox and Sollecito appealed in 2011 on very narrow grounds and were wrongly set free as appeals were not done; that court was provably bent and the result was annulled by the Supreme Court’s First Chambers (the “murder court”); (3) the First Chambers (not the prosecutors) ordered a repeat of the first appeal in 2013-14 and the 2009 guilty verdict was confirmed; (4) in Knox’s and Sollecito’s final appeal a provably bent Fifth Chambers (which normally never handles murders) declared them not guilty but involved anyway in the mother of all weird rulings. Had that appeal correctly gone back to First Chambers, they would still be locked up.

2. “All four years Knox was in prison were unjustified”

Untrue. In the first year she repeatedly failed to convince courts including even the Supreme Court, in the face of ever-mounting evidence, that she should make bail or house arrest or be released entirely. The other three years were fully justified because with no provocation she accused an innocent man of murder and never ever retracted her claim.  Endemically Knox tries to make out her “interrogation” was forced and therefore it was all the cops’ fault not hers.  But see here. There was actually no interrogation as such at all, she was not forced to confess, the malicious accusation of murder against an innocent man was spontaneous, and she sustained it for several weeks.

3. “Knox was exonerated proving lower courts wrong”

Untrue. Knox was not exonerated. And the provable bending of three courts is ignored. The mafia role in sliming Italian justice and liberating the pair is swept under the rug. Almost every Italian has long known what was going on but to talk about it or write about it is not something they like to do. The existence of the mafias does not make them proud and to talk of them is not always safe. We first wrote extensively here and most recently again extensively here about why and how the manipulations occurred.

4. “Knox is a model for all prisoners wrongly held”

Untrue. They can learn nothing from this. Maybe 200,000 are wrongly held in the US; are any seeing a way out via Knox? There is no mention of the role of the brutal PR campaign which few could afford. Omitted is how damaging and dishonest it was and still is, how destructive to so many additional victims of Knox, and how focused on making a buck. Knox is not the only speaker being paid to lie to crowds; others are as well. Numerous books and articles are involved and media and consultant fees. This is a cash industry now, not a charity, with Knox as hallowed cash-cow.

4. Where This Hoaxfest Goes Next

More and more is out in the open. There are attempts to change the subject when curiosity about these subjects is on the rise - but notice how there is no direct pushback and there are no legal threats. Those who have foolishly acted as witting or unwitting mafia tools want zero attention to their roles here.

Don Corleone surely smiles broadly in his grave. Never has Italian justice been trashed around the world on a scale anything like this. Very nice if groups who have rented Knox and become aware they were hoaxed choose to demand their $10,000 back right now. That’d end the blood-money flow at one stroke.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Interrogation Hoax #19: ALL Knox Q&A Sessions 2-6 November 2007 WERE Recorded #1

Posted by Our Main Posters

Working entrance of Perugia’s main police station

1. What Does The Hoax Allege?

In its ever-differing core version (see Part 3) this widely-promulgated hoax alleges among other things:

(1) that the total hours Knox was questioned from 2 to 6 November was upward of 50;

(2) that Knox was the main suspect for the murder of Meredith from the get-go;

(3) that the “interrogation” was conducted by tag-teams of investigators working in shifts;

(4) that Knox was under duress and forbidden bathroom breaks, sleep and refreshments.

(5) that Knox was refused a lawyer and all questioning sessions were illegally not recorded.

(6) That the outcome was “a confession”.

2. Who Are The Main Propagators?

Often seeming intent on outdoing one another in their manufactured outrage and lurid descriptions, the frontrunners are Doug Preston, Steve Moore, Michael Heavey, Paul Ciolino, Saul Kassin, John Douglas, and Bruce Fischer.

Also Steve Moore, Steve Moore, and Steve Moore. Seemingly for him an obsession.

Thousands of other accounts take their word as gospel. Curt Knox and Edda Mellas have repeated it, blaming Amanda when challenged (really).

Amanda Knox attempts to fire up this hoax again repeatedly.

But testimonies of numerous investigators at trial that she sat through without objection confirmed one another, strong proof that nothing on the list above is true.

Knox tried to make some of this fly at the 17 December 2007 questioning that she herself requested by Dr Mignini.

She tried again on the stand at trial in July 2009. But she had to concede that none of it was like that list above and that she was treated fairly on 5-6 Nov.

No judge in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015 ever accepted that a “confession” was forced out of her. Knox’s own lawyers did not believe it.

Totally isolated on this in court, and often her own worst enemy, Knox was sentenced to three years for voluntarily and maliciously fingering Patrick.

Knox will remain a felon for life (there can be no reversal) for this demonizing of Patrick.

She is trying very hard to hide that fact.

For example she hid it last year from Netflix. Now she is hiding it from Vice Media who dont realize that Knox is the mother of all demonizers. Not yet.

3. Complete Absence Of Verification

So far, the hoax is a huge fail. See Part 2.

But the malicious or confused usual suspects continue to parrot the hoax like a mantra. For Fischer’s hapless bunch of apologists on Ground Report it’s a mainstay.

In this series we have already posted proof of records of all Q&A made and signed by Knox herself for 5 and 6 November. They dont go toward proving anything on the list.

Here below is the record made and signed by Knox three days earlier for 2 November. A sort of prequel but an important one. It began at the house and then took maybe two hours at the questura. We will be posting the records for 3 and 4 November soon. None of them go toward proving anything at all on the list.

Here Knox was in discussion (in fact said to be eagerly in discussion) with just three officers on their regular shifts. This record is timed at 3:30 pm. There was a hour or so for discussion and an hour or so for typing and signing. Then Knox sat outside with others until they were all fingerprinted and sent home.

This below was the longest of all her questionings.  Her sessions on 3 and 4 November merely consisted of two visits with Dr Mignini to the house, nothing more. Her nighttime sessions on 5 and 6 November we have posted on; they were quite short too. We know of no hard proof that puts their aggregate time beyond ten hours at maximum. We think less actually.

We will post the reports for 3 and 4 November soon, and you may be surprised at their briefness and thrusts - especially as Knox’s book suggests rank paranoia and chronic fatigue at the burdensomness of it all setting in.

Remember Knox was free to walk out of the police station at any time. Remember twice she turned up unrequested and she just hung around, watching and listening. (Her team actually counts in all those hours to get to their 50-plus.)

Before the wee hours of 6 November she did not even have the status of a witness. Just a person with information of possible value.

Told that she needed a lawyer on 5 and 6 November by both Rita Ficarra and Dr Mignini, she brushed them off, and kept talking and talking.

She was very keen to see things put in writing, and she demanded statements like this one to sign. The Sollecito statement follows.

4. Signed Record Of Knox Statement 2 November

[Preliminary Translation Not Yet Checked Out For Wiki]

Questura di Perugia /Perugia Police Station
Squadra Mobile /Flying Squad

Re: Transcript of summary information from persons informed of the facts (of the case) conveyed by:
KNOX, Amanda Marie, born in Washington (USA) on July 9th, 1987, domiciled in Perugia, Via della Pergola n. 7; identified by means of Passport n. 422687114 issued by the US Government on June 13th, 2007, tel. 3484673590.

On the day of November 2nd, 2007 at 3.30 pm, in Perugia at the offices of the Squadra Mobile of the Questura of Perugia. Before the undersigned Officers of the Judicial Authority Inspectors Luca C. Scatigno and Rita Ficarra, Assistant Fabio D’Astolto, respectively on duty at the aforementioned office and the local U.P.G.S.P., there is present the person indicated above who sufficiently understands and speaks Italian, who regarding to the death of Meredith Susanna Cara KERCHER, and who declares the following:

“I have been in Italy since the end of September for reasons of study, even if occasionally, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work in a pub called “Le Chic”, and since then I have lived at Via della Pergola number 7 together with other girls, specifically: Laura, 27 years of age, who is the one through whom I found the apartment in question, Filomena, 28 years of age, whose surnames I don’t know, but I know that they work in a law firm, though not together.

Then also living there is Meredith, an English student attending on the Erasmus exchange programme. Each one of us, peripatetically, occupies a room in the aforementioned apartment, on the 2nd floor. The common parts shared by all the girls are the two bathrooms and kitchen. Access to the apartment is through a door reached by an exterior stair. This entrance door, to be well closed, needs to be locked by means of keys, because otherwise as it is broken the door can be opened with a simple push.

Yesterday afternoon I definitely saw Meredith at lunch time, around 1 pm roughly. On that occasion I ate at my house together with my Italian boyfriend, Raffaele, whereas Meredith did not eat with us. Around 3 pm or perhaps 4 pm, after chatting a bit together with us, Meredith said goodbye and left, without however saying either the place she was going to or with whom, while we remained to play the guitar. I am not sure if yesterday Laura was at the house, because I didn’t see her, but I cannot exclude that she may have been in her room. Filomena, on the other hand, I saw yesterday morning before lunch time. She was preparing herself to go to a graduation party that afternoon.

Around 5 pm I left my house together with Raffaele to go to his house where we stayed the whole evening and the night.

This morning, around 10-11am, I returned to my house alone to have a shower and change my clothes, and in this circumstance I noticed that the entrance door of the apartment was wide open whereas the doors to the rooms inside the house were all closed, at least the ones to Filomena’s and Meredith’s rooms, although I didn’t check if they were locked, whereas the one to Laura’s room was ajar and my door was open as usual. These things seemed really strange to me because, like I already said, it is customary for all of us to always close the entrance door with a key since that is the only possible way to close it. So I started to call [the names of] the girls aloud, but without getting an answer. At that moment I thought that maybe one of the girls had gone out to throw the trash into the bins, or to go to see our neighbors, the boys, who occupy the apartment below ours and with whom we hang out.

I remember having closed the front door of the apartment, but I didn’t lock it with the keys, and I went to the bathroom located near to my room, the one that only me and Meredith usually use, to have a shower, when I noticed drops of blood on the floor and a bigger blood stain on the bath math and other blood stains on the sink as if someone had smeared it with a bloody hand. This thing seemed a bit strange to me because we girls are all fairly clean and tidy, and we clean the bathroom [immediately] after we have used it. At first I thought that the blood on the sink could be mine because I did some ear piercings about a week ago, so I immediately checked in the mirror and touched my ear. Then I touched the blood on the sink but seeing that it was not removed immediately, that is, it was not recent, I thought it could be some girl’s menstrual blood and because it disgusted me, I did not attempt to clean it.

Immediately after this I went to the other bathroom, where I usually dry my hair, and after having dried it, I noticed that there were feces in the toilet, that is, someone had used it to relieve themselves, but they had not flushed afterwards. This thing also seemed strange to me for the reasons that I have already stated, and so I avoided flushing it myself

Later I took the mop, which was located inside a closet, and I left my house to go to my boyfriend’s house to clean his room [kitchen] because we had soiled it the previous night. I remember that when I left, around 11.30 am, but I’m not sure about the precise time as I didn’t look very carefully at the clock, I closed the door of the apartment with a turn of the key.

After arriving at the house of my boyfriend, who lives alone in an apartment near my house and to be more precise in Corso Garibaldi number 110, we stayed there for about an hour, for the time it took to clean the kitchen and have some breakfast, after which we returned to my house together. I want to point out that I immediately told my boyfriend about the strange things that I had detected in my house, and he urged me to call one of the girls.

And I did indeed first call Filomena to ask her if she knew anything about the blood I had found in the bathroom, and she replied that she knew nothing about it as she had slept at her boyfriend’s, Marco’s, house the previous night, and the following morning, that is, this morning, she had gone directly to work without going home first. After Filomena, I phoned Meredith three times and to be more precise, the first time I called her, I called her English cell phone number 00447841131571, which is the first phone number Meredith gave to me, and which I saved first to my phone card; the phone rang several times, and at one point I heard the line disturbances and interruption of rings. So I tried to contact her on the phone with the number 3484673711, and also this time the phone rang but no-one answered. I tried calling her for the third time with the first cell phone number again, but also this time without getting an answer.

I didn’t call Laura because Filomena had told me in the previous phone call that she had gone to Rome, but I don’t remember if Filomena told me when she had left.

So I haven’t seen Laura since the afternoon of October 31st this year.

At this point, I returned to my house with my boyfriend, worried about Meredith, because she was the only one whose whereabouts I didn’t know of.

When I got to my house, around 1 pm, I opened the front door, which I found locked, and entered the apartment. I began to open the doors of the rooms occupied by the other girls. First, I opened Filomena’s bedroom door, that is the first room nearest to the entrance, and together with Raffaele we found that the window, with two shutters, was open and the window glass was broken. I don’t remember if both glasses were broken or only the other one. Broken glass was scattered on the floor, inside the room, near the window. Scared, I thought it could be that a thief had entered the house, and then I quickly glanced around to check that everything was in order, and that nothing had been removed. So I headed to Laura’s room and also there I opened the door and checked that everything was in order. I want to point out that I didn’t go inside the rooms, that I just had a quick look, from the door.

Immediately after that I went into my room, and even there I didn’t notice anything / nothing was different, after which I headed to Meredith’s room, but I couldn’t open the door because it was locked. 

At that point I looked out from the bathroom terrace, leaning forward to try and see the window of Meredith’s room, but I couldn’t see anything, after which I returned to the door to look through the keyhole and I could only see Meredith’s handbag on the bed. I retraced my steps to take another look at all the rooms without, however, entering any of them and without noticing anything unusual. Immediately after that I entered the first bathroom near the entrance to the apartment where I very quickly looked around without paying close attention to whether the feces were still inside the toilet.

At that point while Raffaele remained in the apartment, I went down to the downstairs students’ apartment, and above all to talk with Giacomo hoping he would have news of Meredith’s whereabouts, but no-one answered the door. After I had returned to the apartment, Raffaele decided to call his sister for advice on what to do, and immediately after that call he called, I don’t know if it was the state police (Polizia) or Carabinieri, to come to the house, and in the meantime, I contacted Filomena at her cell phone number 3471073006 to inform her we had found the window panes in her room broken, and that Meredith’s room was locked. She replied that she would join me at once.

Raffaele, who was worried about Meredith’s safety, tried to break the door to her room by kicking it without success, and immediately afterwards we saw the plainclothes police arrive. After they showed us their identification cards, they inquired about our particulars and our cell telephone numbers. Then they asked us what had happened. We told them about the window we had found with the shattered glasses, about the blood stains found in the bathroom, and about Meredith’s room that was strangely locked. The policemen asked us questions about the people who occupied the house and about the telephone calls made, and in the meantime a friend of Filomena whom I know as Marco, and two other friends of hers I didn’t know, arrived. At that point Filomena began to talk to the policemen, and while I stood aside in the kitchen, the others together with the policemen headed for Meredith’s room and broke down the door. I can’t specify who really proceeded to break down the door. At that point I heard Filomena screaming and saying “a foot, a foot” while the police officers ordered us all to go outside the apartment.

At that moment I learned from my boyfriend that inside Meredith’s room, in the wardrobe there was a girl’s body covered with a sheet, and the only thing you could see was a foot. None of those present mentioned the name of Meredith, and as I left the house immediately after that without having seen the body, I can’t state whether it’s her.

Additionally: There are four Italian students living in the apartment on the lower floor of my house, and we often gather together to play the guitar; together with them we also went out a few times to go for a dinner, and once we went to a disco. Meredith and I went out more times together with all the four boys than the other two (Laura and Filomena). These guys are respectively called Giacomo, Marco, Stefano and the fourth, with whom I personally speak very little, I seem to remember is called Riccardo. I know that one of the four guys, to be precise, Giacomo, is Meredith’s boyfriend. In fact, Meredith sometimes slept at Giacomo’s house and sometimes Giacomo came to our house to sleep with Meredith. I want to point out that the two didn’t very often go out together as Meredith went out with her English friends while Giacomo, from what Meredith told me, preferred to spend more time at home.

Additionally: Regarding the house keys, I can say that they are available to each of us, but I don’t know that other outsiders would be in possession of any copies of them, including Raffaele, my boyfriend. I’m sure Filomena gave no key to Marco, her boyfriend, since every time he arrives at our house he always knocks at the door very loudly. Laura doesn’t have a boyfriend, whereas regarding Meredith, I can say that knowing her I don’t think she had given keys to Giacomo even if I can’t definitely rule it out.

Additionally: Meredith and Giacomo had only been seeing each other for a few weeks, and as for their relationship, Meredith herself told me that it was going well, she never talked about any quarrels with Giacomo, whom I moreover find a very quiet guy. As I’ve already said, she went out very often with her English friends, and they used to attend the disco pub “Merlins”. Once I went there too, and another time we went to another disco pub. Both times there were just us girls.

Additionally: Meredith and I did not celebrate Halloween together, in that I, that evening, was at the “Le Chic” pub, but not for work, but I know she went to “Merlins” with her English friends and without Giacomo, as she told me herself just yesterday. She told me that she had a lot of fun. She did not tell me about any new acquaintances made that evening. From what I know she always went out with the same friends, including me, or with Giacomo and his friends. She usually did not go out alone in the evening.

Additionally: I can describe Meredith as a girl of 21 years or age, of English nationality, about 1.70cm (5’7’‘) tall, thin build, olive complexion, black hair smooth and long, brown eyes. I don’t think she had any particular marks such as tattoos or other marks on her body. The last time I saw her, she was wearing white jeans and a short, light, pale-colored jacket.

Written, read, confirmed, signed

The declarer The verbalizers

Amanda Knox (signed) (Signed, three signatures)

5. Signed Record Of Sollecito Statement 2 November

QUESTURA DI PERUGIA
Anti-crime Police Division
Flying Squad
Section 5 Anti-drug treatment
SUBJECT: Minute of summary testimonial information provided by:
SOLLECITO Raffaele, born in Bari on 26.03.1984 residing in Giovinazzo (BA) in via Solferino nr. 4, domiciled in Perugia in C.so Garibaldi nr. 110, identified by means of C.I. nr. AJ1946390 Issued by the Municipality of Giovinazzo (BA) on 22.07.2004 Tel.340 / 3574303.

The year 2007, of the month of November, the day 02 at 15.45, in the offices of the
Flying Squad of the Perugia Police Headquarters.

Before us, undersigned Officers and Agents of P.G. Sost. Commissioner ROSCIOLI Roberto and Ass. ROSSI Romano, belonging to the Office. In the indicated inscription, the person indicated is the subject who heard about the finding of a dead English girl inside a flat located in Perugia in via della Pergola no. 7 who declares the following:

I state that I am a university student, enrolled in the first year of the Mathematics-Physics-Natural Sciences Department, at the Computer Science course at the University of Perugia. I am enrolled at the aforementioned university since 2003, also for about a year between 2005 and 2006 I attended the same course in Germany, through the Erasmus project. From October 2006 I returned to Perugia and for the study periods I live alone in a studio located in Perugia in Corso Garibaldi No. 10.

About a week and a half ago, I met my current girl of American nationality, KNOX Amanda, who is also a student, enrolled at the local University of Foreigners. My girlfriend lives together with three other students in an apartment located in Perugia in via della Pergola No. 7. Visting there, I have met the other three roommates, Filomena of Italian nationality, Laura also Italian with residence in Viterbo, and Meredith of English nationality with residence in London.

Since Amanda and I met, she usually spends the night at my house, same as it happened yesterday night and the previous one.

Yesterday morning, my girlfriend and I woke up around 10.30; I stayed to sleep while Amanda went to her home with the agreement that we would be seing each other in the early afternoon of the same day. Around 2:00 pm I went to Amanda’s house to have lunch with her and once I got there, I also found Meredith in the house who had already eaten. After eating lunch, I stayed at home talking to both my girlfriend and Meredith, who in the meantime was preparing to leave.

At about 4:00 pm, Meredith left without saying where she was going, while we stayed home until about 5.30 pm. After that hour, Amanda and I took a little trip to the town center and then went to my house where we stayed until this morning.

This morning around 10.00, we woke up and as on other occasions, Amanda returned home to take a shower and change, with the intention of returning later to my house.

At about 11:30 am, Amanda returned to my house and while we were having breakfast, she told me worriedly that in the house where she lives she had found the door open, and in the bathroom used by her and Meredith Amanda had noticed traces of blood both on the sink and in the mat below. Furthermore, Meredith’s room was locked.

Concerned about the situation, because it was not clear why the front door had remained open, Amanda went downstairs and knocked on the door of some Italian students who live under her to ask for help, but with negative outcome because nobody answered. I want to clarify that among the guys of the apartment above, there is a Giacomo, a person unknown to me, who Amanda says would hang out with Meredith. Not receiving resposess, Amanda, before returning to my house, locked the door and after arriving at my home told me the story

She asked me to take her home to find out what had happened. Once on the spot, Amanda opened the door, which has a defect in the lock, both from the outside and from the inside, which opens only with the keys because the handle does not work. Without the keys, it can not close even you pull it outward.

Once inside, we walked around the house and immediately Amanda noticed that in the other bathroom, the one used by the two Italian girls, when she left the house, there were faeces in the toilet while when we entered the toilet it was clean. In addition, the room in use by Filomena had the door wide open, was untidy and had the window completely open with the glass of the left pane broken in the lower part. Seeing this, Amanda told me that she had not previously seen this as the door to the aforementioned room was blocking the view of what was inside.

At this point, I went into the bathroom in use both by Amanda and Meredith. Here I too noticed the traces of blood on both the sink and the mat. Assuming something had happened, I was asking Amanda to call her roommate friends, but after several attempts she could only get in touch with Filomena, who told her that she was at her boyfriend’s house and that she would be returning immediately.

At this point Amanda called Meredith several times, and knocked on the door, but without any reply. Given the situation, I looked out of the various windows of the house in order to see where the window of Meredith’s room was, but being situated at the end of the apartment it was difficult to access from the outside, I decided to try to open the door by kicking it and pushing it at the height of the lock, but without succeeding because I only caused cracks in the wall and in the door.

Not succeeding in the intent, I tried to look through the keyhole which was missing the key and from there I could only see a brown woman’s bag that was on the bed, and on the left side probably an open cupboard door.

At this point I asked for advice from my sister, who serves as a Lieutenant of the Carabinieri in Rome, who advised me to call 112 directly. The local 112 when asked by me said that he would send a radio car. While waiting for the Carabinieri, I saw plainclothes police arrive who identified themselves officers of the Polizia Postale, who were looking for Filomena and Meredith because they had found the two cell phones of the latter.

To them, both Amanda and I told the story described above, and because of this the agents, given the situation, broke through the door of the room of Meredith thus ascertaining the tragic event. Seeing their faces I stayed on the sidelines and I did not look at what was inside. Present at the time of the breakthrough of the door, in addition to us and the police, there was also Filomena and her boyfriend who had arrived in the meantime and had reported not knowing where Meredith was.

Later a patrol squad of the Carabinieri also arrived. Being more precise, Amanda, when she told me that she went to ask for help from the boys who live below her apartment, found the doors closed but the gate in front of those doors was open.

I have nothing else to add.
Done, read, confirmed and signed.
Raffaele Sollecito

Saturday, December 09, 2017

Exoneration Hoax: Murder Apologists Should READ The Supreme Court’s Final Words

Posted by The Machine

Emory Law Dean Schapiro; Martha Grace Duncan; Harvard Law Dean Manning

1. Overview Of This Post

This flows from our first post ten days ago.

Martha Grace Duncan credits many dozens for their research help. Really? For precisely what? 

This is more about the research that Martha Grace Duncan and the huge group she thanks (see Part 4 below) should have done.  We will see here how she makes false claims that even a mere hour or two of checking if the courts actually said what she claimed would have stopped those claims dead in their tracks.

Did neither Duncan nor any of those hapless dozens now associated with her fraud think to do that? Below, with quotes, I will show how it is done.

2. Misrepresentation Of Supreme Court

It is blatantly apparent from reading Martha Grace Duncan’s academic paper bizarrely titled “WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN YOUR ROOMMATE IS MURDERED IN ITALY: AMANDA KNOX, HER “STRANGE” BEHAVIOR, AND THE ITALIAN LEGAL SYSTEM”  that she hasn’t actually read Judge Marasca’s final Supreme Court report.

She is ignorant of what that court actually said, and so she thoroughly misrepresents it.

Remember: (1) An acquittal under paragraph 1 of article 530 is a definitive acquittal or exoneration, the much stronger outcome. (2) An acquitted under paragraph 2 of article 530 is an insufficient evidence acquittal or dropping of charges for now. 

Also remember: Knox received TWO convictions: (1) for murder and (2) for calunnia. Duncan falsely claims in her academic paper that Amanda Knox has been “fully exonorated by Italy’s highest court” implying both. Knox was not exonerated for either conviction in fact.

If Martha Grace Duncan had read the final Supreme Court report, she would have known that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were merely acquitted for murder for now under paragraph 2.

(That is appealable, as is overuling of the Nencini court and dabbling in the evidence, as both are against the code.)

Martha Grace Duncan further highlights her ignorance with regard to the contents of Marasca’s Supreme Court report by falsely claiming that the Supreme Court dropped all charges against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

“March 29, 2015: The Supreme Court of Cassation overturns the murder convictions of Amanda and Raffaele and drops all charges against them.”

The Supreme Court actually reconfirmed Amanda Knox’s conviction for calunnia. She served three years in prison for repeatedly accusing Diya Lumumba of murder despite the fact she knew he was innocent.

“It is restated the inflicted sentence against the appellant Amanda Marie Knox, for the crime of slander at three years of prison.”

Judge Marasca pointed out in his report that Amanda Knox’s conviction for calunnia cannot be overturned.

“On the other hand, in the slanderous declaration against Lumumba, which earned her a conviction, the status of which is now protected as a final judgement”.

There is a common misconception amongst Amanda Knox’s supporters that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) might overturn Knox’s conviction for calunnia.

However, she is believed not even to have asked for that. And the ECHR cannot quash or reverse verdicts anyway, it can only recommend. In other words, Amanda Knox will remain a convicted criminal, a felon, for the rest of her life. That cannot be wound back.

Appeal Judge Nencini pointed out in his report that Amanda Knox didn’t retract her false and malicious allegation against Diya Lumumba the whole time he was in prison, and the motive for her allegation was to deflect attention away from herself and Sollecito and avoid retaliatory action from Rudy Guede.

“Amanda Marie Knox maintained her false and malicious story for many days, consigning Patrick Lumumba to a prolonged detention. She did not do this casually or naively. In fact, if the young woman’s version of events is to be relied upon, that is to say, if the allegations were a hastily prepared way to remove herself from the psychological and physical pressure used against her that night by the police and the prosecuting magistrate, then over the course of the following days there would have been a change of heart. This would inevitably have led her to tell the truth, that Patrick Lumumba was completely unconnected to the murder. But this did not happen.

“And so it is reasonable to take the view that, once she had taken the decision to divert the attention of the investigators from herself and Raffaele Sollecito, Amanda Marie Knox became fully aware that she could not go back and admit calunnia. A show of remorse would have exposed her to further and more intense questioning from the prosecuting magistrate. Once again, she would bring upon herself the aura of suspicion that she was involved in the murder.

Indeed, if Amanda Marie Knox had admitted in the days following to having accused an innocent man, she would inevitably have exposed herself to more and more pressing questions from the investigators. She had no intention of answering these, because she had no intention of implicating Rudy Hermann Guede in the murder.

“By accusing Patrick Lumumba, who she knew was completely uninvolved, because he had not taken part in the events on the night Meredith was attacked and killed, she would not be exposed to any retaliatory action by him. He had nothing to report against her. In contrast, Rudy Hermann Guede was not to be implicated in the events of that night because he, unlike Patrick Lumumba, was in Via della Pergola, and had participated [100] in the murder. So, he would be likely to retaliate by reporting facts implicating the present defendant in the murder of Meredith Kercher.

“In essence, the Court considers that the only reasonable motive for calunnia against Patrick Lumumba was to deflect suspicion of murder away from herself and from Raffaele Sollecito by blaming someone who she knew was not involved, and was therefore unable to make any accusations in retaliation. Once the accusatory statements were made, there was no going back. Too many explanations would have had to be given to those investigating the calunnia; explanations that the young woman had no interest in giving.”

The Marasca/Bruno court took no issue with that. Judge Marasca also believed Amanda Knox wanted to avoid retaliatory action from Rudy Guede and stated it was a circumstantial element against her.

“However, the said calunnia is another circumstantial element against the appellant, insofar as it can be considered a strategy in order to cover up for Mr. Guede, whom she had an interest to protect because of fear of retaliatory accusations against her.”

Apart from these two significant factual errors concerning the Supreme Court’s rulings in her academic paper, it’s clear that Martha Grace Duncan is labouring under the misapprehension that Amanda Knox was “fully exonerated” by the Supreme Court because there is some exculpatory evidence that provides definititve proof that Amanda Knox is innocent. However, she never explains what this exculpatory evidence is.

If Martha Grace Duncan had taken the time to read Marasca’s report, she would have known that the Supreme Court didn’t fully exonerate Amanda Knox at all. On the contrary, it actually implicated her in Meredith’s murder.

It ascertained the following: (1) there were multiple attackers (2) it’s a proven fact that Amanda Knox was at the cottage when Meredith Kercher was killed (3) she washed Meredith’s blood off in the small bathroom (4) she lied to the police (5) she falsely accused Diya Lumumba of murder to cover for Rudy Guede in order to avoid retaliatory action and (6) the break-in at the cottage was staged.

I’ll substantiate each and every one of the claims above with quotations from Judge Marasca’s report to show Martha Grace Duncan how it is done and to give her the full picture of what’s in the report rather than the partial one that has been given to her presumably by Amanda Knox and her supporters.

1. There Were Multiple Attackers On The Night

“The [court’s] assessment of it, in accord with other trial findings which are valuable to confirm its reliability is equally correct. We refer to multiple elements linked to the overall reconstructions of events, which rule out Guede could have acted alone.

Firstly, testifying in this direction are the two main wounds observed on the victim’s neck, on each side, with a diversified path and features, attributable most likely (even if the data is contested by the defense) to two different cutting weapons. And also, the lack of signs of resistance by the young woman, since no traces of the assailant were found under her nails, and there is no evidence of any desperate attempt to oppose the aggressor, the bruises on her upper limbs and those on mandibular area and lips (likely the result of forcible hand action of constraint meant to keep the victim’s mouth shut) found during the cadaver examination, and above all, the appalling modalities of the murder which were not pointed out in the appealed ruling.

“And in fact, the same ruling (p323 and 325) reports of abundant blood found on the right of the wardrobe located in Kercher’s room, about 50cm above the floor. Such occurrence, given the location and direction of the drops, could probably lead to the conclusion the young woman had her throat literally “slashed” likely while she was kneeling , while her head was being forcibly held tilted towards the floor, at a close distance from the wardrobe, when she was hit by multiple stab wounds at her neck, one of which - the one inflicted on the left side of the neck - caused her death, due to asphyxia following the massive bleeding, which also filled the breathing ways preventing breathing activity, a situation aggravated by the rupture of the hyoid bone - this also linkable to blade action - with consequent dyspnoea” (p.48).

“Such a mechanical action is hardly attributable to the conduct of one person alone.” (p.49)

2. Amanda Knox was there when Meredith was killed

“Given this, we now note, with respect to Amanda Knox, that her presence inside the house, the location of the murder, is a proven fact in the trial, in accord with her own admissions, also contained in the memoriale with her own signature, in the part where she tells that, as she was in the kitchen, while the young English woman had retired in the room of same Ms Kercher, together with another person for a sexual intercourse, she heard a harrowing scream, so piercing and unbearable that she let herself down squatting on the floor, covering her ears tight with her hands in order not to hear more of it. About this, the judgement of reliability expressed by the lower [a quo] judge [Nencini] with reference to this part of the suspect’s narrative, [and] about the plausible implication from the fact herself was the first person mentioning for the first time [46] a possible sexual motive for the murder, at the time when the detective still did not have the the cadaver examination, nor the autopsy result, nor the witnesses’ information, which collected only subsequently, about the victim’s terrible scream and about the time when it was heard (Nara Capezalli, Antonella Monocchia and others), is certainly to be subscribed to. We make reference in particular to those declarations that the current appellant [Knox] on 11.6.2007 (p.96) inside the State Police headquarters. On the other hand, in the slanderous declaration against Lumumba, which earned her a conviction, the status of which is now protected as a final judgement [giudicato] [they] had a premise in the narrative, that is the presence of the young American woman, inside the house in via della Pergola, a circumstance which nobody at that time - except obviously the other people present in the house - could have known (quote p.96). 

“According to the slanderous statements of Ms. Knox, she had returned home in the company of Lumumba, whom she had met by chance in Piazza Grimana, and when Ms. Kercher arrived in the house, Knox’s companion, directed sexual attentions toward the English woman, then he went together with her to he room from which the harrowing scream came. So, it was Lumumba who killed Meredith and she could affirm this since she was on the scene of the crime herself, albeit in another room. (p.97)

3. Amanda Knox washed Meredith’s blood off in bathroom

“Another element against her [Amanda Knox] is the mixed traces, her and the victim’s one, in the ‘small bathroom’, an eloquent proof that anyway she had come into contact with the blood of the latter, which she tried to wash away from herself (it was, it seems, diluted blood, while the biological traces belonging to her would be the consequence of epithelial rubbing).

“The fact is very suspicious, but it’s not decisive, besides the known considerations about the sure nature and attribution of the traces in question.”

4. Cassation confirms Amanda Knox lied to the police

“Elements of strong suspicion are also in the inconsistencies and lies which the suspect woman [Amanda Knox] committed over the statements she released on various occasions, especially in the places where her narrative was contradicted by the telephone records which show different incoming SMS messages”.

5. Knox accused Lumumba of murder to avoid Guede’s retaliation

“However, the said calunnia is another circumstantial element against the appellant, insofar as it can be considered a strategy in order to cover up for Mr. Guede, whom she had an interest to protect because of fear of retaliatory accusations against her.”

6. The break-in at the cottage was staged

“And moreover, the staging of a theft in Romanelli’s room, which she is accused of , is also a relevant point within an incriminating picture, considering the elements of strong suspicion (location of glass shards - apparently resulting from the breaking of a glass window pane caused by the throwing of a rock from the outside - on top of the clothes and furniture) a staging, which can be linked to someone who as an author of the murder and flatmate [titolare] with a formal {“qualified”] connection to the dwelling - had an interest to steer suspicion away from himself/herself, while a third murderer in contrast would be motivated by a very different urge after the killing, that is to leave the dwelling as quickly as possible.”

3. Duncan’s Misrepresentation Of Supreme Court

Writing an academic paper on the Amanda Knox case without having read Judge Marasca’s Supreme Court report is akin to writing an academic paper on the assassination of JFK without having read the Warren Report and relying on Oliver Stone’s film and some books written by conspiracy nuts.

The fact Martha Grace Duncan hasn’t even read Marasca’s Supreme Court report, but has instead relied primarily on Amanda Knox and her PR and partisan supporters for her information is embarrassing, to say the least.

Amanda Knox admitted lying to the police in her Waiting to Be Heard. She was convicted of lying by all courts, including the Italian Supreme Court. Since when did the word of a convicted liar trump the official court reports?

Martha Grace Duncan is a professor of law, although you couldn’t tell that from reading her academic paper. Her mistakes e.g. getting basic facts wrong and not bothering to read Marasca’s Supreme Court report or any other official court reports for that matter are unforgivable.

An early version of this Article received the Judith Siegel Pearson Award for Nonfiction in 2014. I am grateful to the judges. Previous versions of this Article were presented at the Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza, Università  degli Studi di Torino; the European University Institute, Fiesole, Italy; the Emory Law Faculty, the Emory Psychoanalytic Studies Program, and the Emory Workshop on Geographies of Violence. My thanks go to the participants. My thanks also go to Robert Ahdieh, Giulia Alagna, Cathy Allan, Flavia Brizio-Skov, Michele Caianiello, Elisabetta Grande, Joe Mackall, Stefano Maffei, Alice Margaria, Claudia Marzella, Gaetano Marzella, Colleen Murphy, David Partlett, Lucia Re, Bob Root, Elena Urso, and Liza Vertinsky. Deep appreciation goes to my research assistants: Stefania Alessi, Mary Brady, Andrew Bushek, Peter Critikos, Sarah Kelsey, Tess Liegois, Zishuang Liu, Mike McClain, Jon Morris, Kaylie Niemasik, Sarah Pittman, Faraz Qaisrani, Deborah Salvato, Shannon Shontz-Phillips, Anthony Tamburro, and Michelle Tanen.

Friday, October 20, 2017

Given The Semi-Public Tensions, Could Someone Close To Knox Blow Her Cover At Last?

Posted by Cardiol MD

By request, image of victim Laci (center) with husband and his half-sister

1. The Minefield Knox Inhabits

Amanda Knox is not exactly surrounded wall-to-wall with friends. There were family tensions going way back which even Knox mentioned in her book.

Since returning to the US her reaching out to those who supported her 2007-11 has been selective and cursory at best.

There have been frequent differences and jealousies among the bandwagon of opportunists which exploded into view when Frank Sforza laid a trail of violence among supporters in the United States.

Her whole family took a financial hit. Many at her high-school didnt appreciate her putting that school under a cloud. When she was first arrested, only a few among her circle at the University of Washington spoke for her.

Unnamed others at her school and university talked about Knox frequently acting wild and being on drugs, and how to them her involvement in a death caused minimal surprise. 

She defamed many in Italy and was the direct cause of her drug dealer ending up in prison. In her paid presentations and TV appearances she continues to defame and actively tries to inflict hurt.

2. Examples Of Potential Threats

Here is a partial list of those who know enough of the truth to sell Knox out in their own name or secretly by proxy - we have already had several nibbles.

1. Rudy Guede

2. Raffaele Sollecito

3. Knox’s mother: Edda Mellas

4. Knox’s father: Curt Knox

5. Knox’s step-father: Chris Mellas

6. Knox’s younger sister: Deanna

7. Knox’s best friend in Seattle: Madison Paxton

8. Knox’s two step-sisters: Ashley Knox and Delaney Knox

9. Knox’s lawyers: Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga

10. Raffaele Sollecito’s Father: Francesco Sollecito

11. Raffaele Sollecito’s Sister: Vanessa Sollecito

12. Raffaele Sollecito’s Lawyer: Luca Maori

13. Chris Robinson?

Could any of those turn? Probably not, but all those and quite a few other people close to Amanda Knox do know she is guilty in the killing of Meredith Kercher.

It may seem to some of them that Knox and Sollecito may have intended “only” to “teach-her-a-lesson” violently torturing and humiliating Meredith using knives.

And that the stabbing-to-death occurred “only” after Meredith screamed, when Knox and Sollecito impulsively silenced Meredith by driving in their knives.

They may open up to a halfway point seeking sympathy which they think is better than seeing Knox live under a black cloud of suspicion all her life.

Or the incessant stalking of Meredith’s family led by the Mellases may come to seem too much. Or they may simply dislike Knox and her family for their callousness and greed. Who knows?

3. Scott Petersen Is Sold Out

Main poster Giustizia explained the case and the many parallels in this post here.

Now see this book Blood Brother: 33 Reasons My Brother Scott Peterson Is Guilty by his half-sister Anne Bird.

Scott’s natural father is Lee Peterson. Anne Bird’s natural father is apparently unlisted, but is not Lee Peterson.

Anne Bird is now the adoptive daughter of Jerri and Tom Grady. Anne Bird did not meet Scott until June 1997, when Anne was 32 and Scott was 24. (Born: July 8, 1965, age 52, San Diego County, California, CA).

In summary: Spouse: Tim Bird (m. 1998). Parents: Jackie Peterson. Books: Blood Brother: 33 Reasons My Brother Scott Peterson Is Guilty. Siblings: Scott Peterson born October 24, 1972)

4. Why Did She Speak Out?

The list provided by Anne Bird of her “reasons” is very subjective, and does not coincide with those of the Peterson Jury.

1. On our last day at Disneyland, when Ryan went missing and everyone panicked, Scott stayed on his cell in his own world. Total disconnect. *

2. While at Tommy’s christening on January 12, 2003, Scott sat and held Tommy entire time and looked uncomfortable. Rector seemed to get bad feeling about Scott, like he knew something or wasn’t buying it.

3. Scott upgraded his porn channel later that day.

4. In interviews with Gloria Gomez and Diane Sawyer, Scott said Laci knew about Amber. No way she knew he was having an affair! No way she would have put up with it.*

5. On Ryan’s third birthday, Scott stayed with us. He had just returned from his P.O. box in Modesto and had hate mail with him. There was a praying mantis on one, and another had a birthday cake picture with three candles and it said “Happy Birthday Ryan.” This made me scared, and I do not know where it came from or how anyone else would know about Ryan’s birthday. Also, there was a letter””the one he thought was from the Rocha family””that was definitely a death threat. He seemed to be able to joke about it.

6. Scott partying, celebrating while Laci is missing. A lot of “carrying on” the entire time I was with him.*

7. When he was at our house and the news came on, he watched and asked if he should get rid of his goatee. Did not seem to recognize how serious it was that he was a “person of interest.”

8. Flirting with our babysitter. Made “flirtinis.” Babysitter felt uncomfortable and left.

9. Jackie and Lee telling me that if asked about babysitter incident, I should just deny it or “not recall” it, suggesting to me that they didn’t want anybody opening that can of worms.

10. The girl he got pregnant in Arizona””was this the reason he left college? The girl had an abortion; then Scott came home.

11. Scott often arrived in different cars. Was he switching cars to avoid being followed?

12. Scott borrowing the shovel up at Lake Arrowhead. He said, “I have a shovel I borrowed that I need to return.”Is it possible he buried something?*

13. Scott did not have money, according to Jackie. Yet he purchased items from REI and North Face outlets while here.

14. Appeared uninterested in search for Laci. I brought up several ideas/ leads (from the news), but he had no direction/ interest in them. I asked if there was anywhere anyone should be looking and brought out map of Modesto. He pointed to Mape’s Ranch (?) like he was very annoyed with me. “Maybe there,” he said.*

15. I saw the table setting from the People magazine photograph and it looks like Scott set the table for Christmas Eve dinner. I have set a table with Laci at a Latham family reunion, and she sets the table correctly. The Christmas “crackers” are a finishing touch””not the only thing you put on a table. There is also no tablecloth and it looks absolutely not up to Laci’s high standards of table setting (something she excelled at).*

16. When I asked about his (new) hair color he said that it was bleached in the swimming pool up in Mammoth when he was there skiing.

17. Scott used alias””Cal, short for California, a name he said that he and Laci originally chose for Conner(IC-insert: on Dec 24th, 2002 Conner was 227 days post-conception, or in his 33rd post-conceptual week, and 53 days or nearly 8 weeks pre-EDD. Therefore he satisfied the SCOTUS requirement for Personhood.) “”to look at apartments for rent so that he didn’t have to give his name. But that wasn’t the name I heard (they wanted).

18. He left our house two to three times to go to Modesto to clean the pool and mow the lawn. He said he did not want the neighbors seeing the pool turning green. Did anyone check the pool for any evidence?

19. Chilling story about the overgrown cemetery in Mendocino. Made up? Possibly. On verge of confessing? Looked like it.

20. Two [of Scott’s] cousins said he was investigated in connection with the disappearance of Kristin Smart, the girl from SLO (missing since 1996).

21. Cousins said somebody must have been helping Scott flee if there was all the stuff in the back of the car.

22. Scott tried to get help removing GPS device from truck. Very annoyed to be tracked at all.

23. Despite what Jackie [The natural mother of Anne and Scott who had given Anne away for adoption soon after Anne’s birth] said on television about Scott and Laci’s “perfect marriage,” on three separate occasions (before Laci disappeared) she told me Scott and Laci were having problems.*

24. Scott claimed he’d had a delusion of speaking into the mirror at their house with Laci. He said this after I told him I had seen Sharon Rocha on the news saying she saw Laci on their couch. [Such visions] are apparently brought on by “extreme grief” or “extreme guilt.”

25. Scott told me that he had another affair before Amber Frey, someone in SLO, and did not give a time when that one occurred. Also, had slept with someone (or two?) on an airplane flight. On that flight he said he “took turns” between two airplane bathrooms. I have no idea when this occurred and did not ask any other details.

26. In L.A., gay relatives took Scott barhopping, went to a gay bar. Scott said he was bummed that no one hit on him.

27. Every time there was a search in the bay, Scott’s voice and reaction was more heightened, and he would say things like “They are wasting their time when they could be out looking for her,” “Time would be better spent looking for her somewhere else.” He was louder and more emotional when they were looking in the bay. *

28. Drinks at the Ballast. At the bar, Scott pulled Mexican pesos from his pocket. When [Gordo] asked if he was going to Mexico sometime soon, Scott didn’t respond. *

29. Dinner at the SD Yacht Club with some of my friends. At 9: 00 P.M. I told Scott that we had to get going, and he said that it was ridiculous””” Who cares?” I called home and said we would be late; kept getting “Who cares?” attitude from Scott, and finally said we had to leave about 10: 30 or 11: 00 P.M.

30. I was the first to call and let him know they found a body of a woman in the bay. He said “They’ll find out it’s not Laci, and they will keep looking for her.” *

31. When I said they’d found the body of a baby the day before, he said “What?!”¦ That’s terrible. Who would do such a thing?!” Seemed very disturbed and voice was loud and emotional again. *

32. On April 17, 2003 Scott stayed at my parents’ house in San Diego. When I asked him why he didn’t go to the Lake Arrowhead house he said his car spun out. I don’t believe he ever went there. I think he went straight to my parents’ because he thought the police knew about the Lake Arrowhead house. *

33. On last prison visit to Redwood, Scott waited till end of visit and said: “You know I didn’t kill my wife.” Couldn’t look me in the eye, then checked for my reaction.*

* indicates “plausibly relevant to Meredith’s case.

Tick tick tick…

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Florence Courts Resent Mangling Of RS/AK Appeal By Cassation Now Have Ominous Ways To Re-Visit

Posted by Peter Quennell

Highrise Florence courts are just visible at left background


The Marasca/Bruno verdict setting RS and AK free has taken some hard knocks within the Italian legal community.

It is not lost on anyone that Sollecito defense lawyer Bongiorno was given special favors, including being allowed to argue unchallenged before the Fifth Chambers for some hours beyond the legal limit.

Or that the Fifth Chambers should never ever have received the appeal.

Or that the drafter, Bruno, was suffering seriously ill health at the time, and delivered a report which is largely legal nonsense.

Here Machiavelli and Catnip and most exhaustively James Raper explained many of Marasca’s and Bruno’s absurdities.

But the Florence courts are not done yet. They are still processing cases involving Knox, Sollecito, Sfarzo (a stage name, real name Sforza) and Aviello. They still sit on this potential bombshell of a case against Sollecito lawyer Maori, which explains how the Fifth Chambers acted illegally.

Other cases are also possible, and two involving Knox are still continuing in Bergamo.

Now Rudy Guede’s team of lawyers in Rome and Viterbo prison have filed an appeal against his own conviction. It is filed with the courts in Florence.

The team notes that judgments against Guede up to and including the Supreme Court’s First Chambers concluded that he had acted against Meredith only in collusion with others and not in isolation.

This could reopen the Marasca/Bruno outcome which argued that he DID act alone or at least not with RS and AK though there is massive evidence to the contrary. That judgment while final in the normal course of things cannot stand under Italian law if illegalities were entered into.

With more and more documentation being read widely, the case against Knox and Sollecito acting in collusion with Guede is coming to look as strong as it did throughout their trial in 2009.

That is the quite possible Florence outcome.

It is one that Guede might accept fairly calmly, as his fury at Sollecito is quite palpable, and he wants nothing more than to nail his fellow attacker.

Sunday, July 03, 2016

How Amanda Knox Is Encouraging West Seattle To Adulate Seriously Sick Individuals

Posted by Hopeful

At bottom: judge Persky may be fired for a light rape sentence


Fellow poster Pensky encouraged us to consider some bizarrely narcissistic postings by Knox on her Facebook.

That led me to her June 13, 2016 discussion of the Stanford rape case. My eyeballs nearly popped out at seeing Knox wax eloquent about Brock Allen Turner (right, at bottom, with lawyers).

He assaulted a comatose young woman outside a frat party, ran away but was seized by passersby. Then 12 jurors unanimously convicted Turner guilty of 3 felonies, but all he has admitted to doing is ingesting alcohol.

He is defiant, unrepentant, and really got lucky with Judge Persky giving him a slap on the wrist, 6 months in county jail, not even prison and he may serve only 3.

IMO, Brock Allen Turner is Knox’s new object of envy and Judge Persky is her new hero.

She waxes prolific about this light-sentenced rape case in the West Seattle Herald yet never ONCE reproaches or rebukes Brock Turner in a sincere and unambivalent way. She minces words, dances around in the passive voice, pretends to silently agree with the public’s outrage, yet she doesn’t fool anybody.

She is seething with jealousy that Turner got such a light sentence!

She is probably comparing Turner’s lucky escape with how she might have dodged a bullet had she only let Meredith live and not “finished her off” (my quotes, my assumptions).

Instead of dispatching the violated Meredith, Knox hoping to avoid prosecution by silencing her victim, now regrets it even more when she sees that Brock Allen Turner left his rape victim alive and that despite his alcohol fueled assault, he got off very lightly. Oh, how green with envy is Foxy Knoxy in retrospect.

Her entire article trumpets the concept of “punishment does no good”.

Yes, just let the devils go because nobody can make them feel ashamed of their crimes if the perp doesn’t wanna feel ashamed. Knox knows that from experience. She sees it in Brock, with his mealy-mouthed letter he wrote as a smokescreen fake apology.

Knox remains defiant and without remorse like Brock Turner. In this article she has the audacity to talk about how sexual assault can rarely be determined; that it’s mostly a he said/she said dilemma as to consent, and thus the suspect must be considered innocent due to reasonable doubt in most cases.

She even quotes Blackstone: “better for 10 guilty folks to escape than one innocent suffer”. I certainly agree with that. Knox got the benefit of that adage. So did Sollecito. Because they scrubbed and cleaned so well.

Knox wonders in this article if Turner’s torments in having to register as a sex offender, lose his college scholarship, lose great job opportunities, live with his reputation in tatters””if these realities will prevent him from reoffending.

She concludes, “Perhaps not. Judge Perky’s [sic] humanization of Turner-the-criminal is not abominable.” Of course not, Knox loves this judge. Herself the felon would desire the judge to go easy on all such birds of a feather as herself.

Nope, Knox isn’t into punishment. Not severe ones at any rate. No, punishment does no good in her opinion.

Her solution? to support the victim, to educate women on how not to become a victim, give victims solidarity and support, “pay attention and care about the suffering of the victim, whether they are vindicated in a court of law or not.”

Duh”¦this is precisely what TJMK and Perugia Murder File.net and .org have been doing for nearly a decade!!!

Knox’s desire as in the title of her article about redirecting focus, redirect it to what? To Knox’s new wisdom that sentences of any sort do no good, they’re vengeance and we should support the victim rather than shame the criminal! Otherwise, the criminal if treated too harshly has the right to his own victim status.

I do agree that extremely harsh sentences do as much damage to the soul of a prisoner as the lightweight joke sentence Brock Turner received.

Knox must be so jealous of the bumbling Mr. Turner. Oh if only she had let her victim live and accepted a few months behind bars, is probably her regret.

Like Turner, Knox confesses to nothing but being confused and forgetful on the night of the crime due to a fog of cannabis. She pretends to have been reduced to a dream state, thus removing any culpability in her conscience. How convenient.

Turner’s best ally and defense was his inebriation. So was Knox’s. Thank goodness for substance abuse which removes felt guilt, though the victim lies dead on the floor.

I cannot believe the gall of Knox to highlight the Brock Turner rape case and parade as a pundit for improved sentencing (or cessation of all sentences, in her ideal world, right?)

She is a ridiculous twisted pundit who claims to seek to improve the criminal justice system. Unmitigated gall. Most jailbirds like her do have great ideas for what society “should have done” with them other than imprison them for their crimes.

She talks about good things but they all assume the victim is still alive to help, things like “embrace a victim through their recovery, offer them resources, give them voice, recognize their value.” But did she recognize Meredith’s value? She could barely speak her name at trial or write it in her book. How many trees has she planted for Meredith?

Her last paragraph says not to equate condemning a criminal with recognizing a victim, and do not deny the “reparation a victim deserves.” What reparations has she paid Patrick Lumumba?

I will assess her silly Dawndra Budd photo spread soon. It is just more blind preening and another form of lies. Dawndra Budd has been deceived along with many others but The Herald article takes first prize in the brass mule contest. Knox loves Mr. Turner the escape artist.

And I am by no means entirely sympathetic to the drunk Emily Doe who was raped by Turner due to her own bad morals and stupidity.

However the really egregious culprit is the even dumber and cowardly Turner. His father is his best apologist, until Knox. At least Brock Turner did his crime alone and without a knife in hand and without a wolfpack of strong accomplices for moral support like Knox needed, if one compares the “courage” of Knox and Turner. They both used Dutch courage from a bottle as the saying goes.

Turner the lout deserves at least a two or three year sentence in lockup and extra community service hours, and stiff fines paid to his victim. Knox has skipped out on three-fourths of her rightful sentence and she remains as defiant and unremorseful as Turner, and she offended much much worse than he did. She seems to hint she might reoffend.

She never really denounces Turner, nor clearly supports Emily Doe except to admire Doe’s courage to “articulate her experience of absolute vulnerability with clarity and dignity”.

Articulate, schmiculate. Emily Doe cries loud and long about her offended dignity when there was little dignity to start with as her drunken public stupor showed. She did not deserve a physical attack, however.

Knox sympathizes with her because Doe was angry at the litany of questions put to her by the police and the wringer the police put her through about her lifestyle in an effort to delegitimize her. Knox takes umbrage with the police at all times, recalling her own dangerous position under interrogation.

Unlike Emily Doe, however, Knox was hiding a true crime of her own. Doe was merely ashamed of her alcoholic excess and her flirting at the frat party with guys when she had a boyfriend elsewhere. Knox totally empathizes with Doe’s lifestyle (remember David Johnsrud and others besides Raffaele when she dated him).

Meredith doesn’t need to articulate. She lived her goodness all along. Actions speak louder than words. Meredith never got to write her memoirs, but they would have been anointed. And truthful, unlike Knox’s clever lies.

Tuesday, September 01, 2015

The Amanda Knox Calunnia Trial In Florence: What It Is All About #2

Posted by Peter Quennell

Above: Florence Prosecutor Dr Angela Pietroiusti. Quick route to Comments here.

1. Most Bungling Team In Legal History?

There is NO WAY Knox and Sollecito would be out on the streets if the playing field had been level.

Knox’s lawyers and family and PR effort and publishers all bungled enormously and suffered an overwhelming loss at both Knox’s trials (murder and calunnia) when pre-trial concessions could have served them well.

To make up for this, they tilted the playing field.

Manipulation of the media and thus American (but not Italian) opinion and manipulation of the evidence and manipulation of judges and manipulation of court-appointed DNA experts and manipulation to prevent Italy from finding out what was in Knox’s and Sollecito’s horrific books.

You want to see manipulation in spades?

See here and here and the whole huge area of the DNA and of course the RS and AK books.

You want to see bungling in spades?

No better example than this one which could possibly cost Sollecito lawyer Luca Maori his career and has stopped the Fifth Chambers of Cassation dead in their tracks.

Also Knox’s and Sollecito’s foolish books involving dozens of others are coming back to haunt them in court. Also look here at how Chris Mellas dropped Knox in it.

Helping Sollecito cost his sister Vanessa her Carbinieri job. Sollecito’s father admitted to Panorama he tried political manipulation and was charged. Knox’s parents parroted Amanda Knox and were charged. “Helpful” investigator Paul Ciolino framed an innocent man in another case and was charged. Doug Preston ally Mario Spezi smeared investigators after the two tried framing an innocent man and blocking an investigation getting too near the truth and Spezi was charged.

Judge Heavey lied to national presidents everywhere and was reprimanded and soon retired. The defense arranged for Judge Hellmann to preside over the 2011 appeal; he was overturned and pushed out. Pepperdine University pushed out the besotted security guard Steve Moore. Frank Sforza, facing felony charges, took off like a rabbit out of America. Defense witness Aviello was charged. 

The defenses’ attempt to climb in Filomena’s window came up short. This bungled frame-up went nowhere. The pathetic Bruce Fischer team has gone nowhere.

2. Bungling In Knox’s Calunnia Case

Keeping Knox quiet for her own good was always a mighty struggle and the defense lawyers openly complained. It was an open secret in Perugia from 2007 to 2009 that Knox’s defense lawyers were struggling with Knox herself and with her family and her PR.

At least one defense lawyer was fired or walked off the job (as with the Sollecito team). This struggle broke out into the open at various times, for example see here.

Still. Knox’s defense team also did at least five things to help make matters worse for her in her calunnia trial now.

1) They allowed Knox to interrupt prosecution witness Anna Donnino, the interpreter, during her testimony in March 2009 to claim she was hit, having repeatedly said previously that that was untrue. That set the legal reaction in motion.

2) They put Knox on the stand seemingly unbriefed and allowed her to contradict both days and days of prosecution testimony and also prior declarations by herself.

3) They put a presumably privileged letter from Knox to themselves in evidence (see previous post) knowing that it contained false claims.

4) They applied to a Perugia judge for the transfer of the calunnia case from Perugia to Florence, thinking the Florence court was gunning for Dr Mignini when the truth is opposite.

5) They applied to the same Perugia judge for the attachment of Dr Mignini’s name to the complaint though they knew he was not at the “interrogation” as even Knox said on the stand.

Due to failed defense efforts Knox has already served three years and is a felon for life, and she now could face another six plus more penalties for her book. She is still not off the hook for murder as Fifth Chambers judges broke two laws and had fishy friends in their pasts.

So, good luck, Amanda Knox. GREAT TEAM!

3. Day Two Of Knox’s Testimony

These are excerpts related to the “interrogation” of 5-6 Nov. Important: we dont yet know what else the prosecutors will include in their charges as much of Knox’s testimony was on other things about which she also lied.

Excerpts in both posts are from the full transcript on the Case Wiki, and all transcription and translation into English (a massive task) was by the PMF Team.

Cross Examination By Prosecutor Mignini

GM:  In your preceding declarations, on Nov 2 at 15:30, on Nov 3 at 14:45, then, there was another one, Nov 4, 14:45, and then there’s Nov 6, 1:45. Only in these declarations, and then in the following spontaneous declarations, did you mention the name of Patrick. Why hadn’t you ever mentioned him before?
AK:  Because that was the one where they suggested Patrick’s name to me.
GM:  All right, now is the time for you to make this precise and specific. At this point I will take…no, I’ll come back to it later. You need to explain this. You have stated: “The name of Patrick was suggested to me. I was hit, pressured.”
AK:  Yes.
GM:  Now you have to tell me in a completely detailed way, you have to remember for real, you have to explain step by step, who, how, when, was the name of Patrick suggested to you, and what had been done before that point. The name of Patrick didn’t just come up like a mushroom; there was a preceding situation. Who put pressure on you, what do you mean by the word “pressure”, who hit you? You said: “They hit me”, and at the request of the lawyer Ghirga, yesterday, you described two little blows, two cuffs.
AK:  Yes.
GM:  So that would be what you meant by being hit?
AK:  Yes.
GM:  Or something else? Tell me if there was something else. You can tell us.
AK:  Okay.
GCM:  So, you are—[Interruptions] The question is—[Interruptions] Escuse me. Excuse me. The question is quite clear. He is repeating this in order to give the accused a chance to add something to these events that were explained by the accused yesterday. The pubblico ministero is asking to return to these events mentioned yesterday in order to obtain more detail about exactly what happened and who did it. Please be as precise as possible.
GM:  So you were in front of—
GCM:  The question is clear.
GM:  All right, so tell us.
GCM:  Yes, it’s clear.
AK:  All right. Okay.
GCM:  If you could give more detail, be more precise, exactly what was suggested to you, about the cuffs, all that.
AK:  Okay.
GCM:  And who did all this, if you can.
AK:  Okay. Fine. So, when I got to the Questura, they placed me to the side, near the elevator, where I was waiting for Raffaele. I had taken my homework, and was starting to do my homework, but a policeman came in, in fact there were I don’t know, three of them or something, and they wanted to go on talking to me. They asked me again—
GM:  Excuse me, excuse me—
AK:  [coldly] Can I tell the story?
GM:  Excuse me for interrupting you otherwise we’ll forget—
CDV:  Presidente, I object to this way of doing things. The question was asked—[Yelling, interruptions]—we should wait for the answer.
GM:  It’s impossible to go on like this, no, no.
CDV:  If a question is asked, she has to be able to answer.
GCM:  Please, please. That’s correct. There is a rule that was introduced, which says that we should absolutely avoid interruptions from anyone.
CDV:  I want to ask that she be allowed to finish her answer. She has the right, no?
GCM:  Please, please, pubblico ministero. It’s impossible to go on this way.
GM:  I would like to, I can—
GCM:  No no no, no one can. We have to make sure that while someone is speaking, there are never any superimposed voices. And since the accused is undergoing examination, she has the right to be allowed to answer in the calmest possible way. Interruptions and talking at the same time don’t help her, and they can’t be written down in the minutes, which obliges the courts to suspend the audience and start it again at a calmer and more tranquil moment.
GM:  Presidente—
GCM:  No, no, no! Interruptions are absolutely not allowed! Not between the parties, nor when the Court, the President is speaking. So, interruptions are not allowed. Now, the accused is speaking, and when she is finished, we can return to her answers—
GM:  Presidente.
GCM:  Excuse me, please! But at the moment she is speaking, we have to avoid interrupting her. But—I don’t know if this is what was wanted—but while you are speaking, if you could tell us when. For instance, you say you were doing homework, but you didn’t tell us when. We need to know when, on what day, the 2nd of November, the 3rd, what time it was. While you are talking, you need to be more detailed, as detailed as you can with respect to the date and the time.
AK:  Okay.
GCM:  And we must avoid interruptions, but when you have finished, we can discuss your answer.
AK:  Thank you. So, here is…how I understood the question, I’m answering about what happened to me on the night of the 5th and the morning of the 6th of November 2007, and when we got to the Questura, I think it was around 10:30 or nearer 11, but I’m sorry, I don’t know the times very precisely, above all during that interrogation. The more the confusion grew, the more I lost the sense of time. But I didn’t do my homework for a very long time. I was probably just reading the first paragraph of what I had to read, when these policemen came to sit near me, to ask me to help them by telling them who had ever entered in our house. So I told them, okay, well there was this girlfriend of mine and they said no no no, they only wanted to know about men. So I said okay, here are the names of the people I know, but really I don’t know, and they said, names of anyone you saw nearby, so I said, there are some people that are friends of the boys, or of the girls, whom I don’t know very well, and it went on like this, I kept on answering these questions, and finally at one point, while I was talking to them, they said “Okay, we’ll take you into this other room.” So I said okay and went with them, and they started asking me to talk about what I had been doing that evening. At least, they kept asking about the last time I saw Meredith, and then about everything that happened the next morning, and we had to repeat again and again everything about what I did. Okay, so I told them, but they always kept wanting times and schedules, and time segments: “What did you do between 7 and 8?” “And from 8 to 9? And from 9 to 10?” I said look, I can’t be this precise, I can tell you the flow of events, I played the guitar, I went to the house, I looked at my e-mails, I read a book, and I was going on like this. There were a lot people coming in and going out all the time, and there was one policeman always in front of me, who kept going on about this. Then at one point an interpreter arrived, and the interpreter kept on telling me, try to remember the times, try to remember the times, times, times, times, and I kept saying “I don’t know. I remember the movie, I remember the dinner, I remember what I ate,” and she kept saying “How can you you remember this thing but not that thing?” or “How can you not remember how you were dressed?” because I was thinking, I had jeans, but were they dark or light, I just can’t remember. And then she said “Well, someone is telling us that you were not at Raffaele’s house. Raffaele is saying that at these times you were not home.” And I said, but what is he saying, that I wasn’t there? I was there! Maybe I can’t say exactly what I was doing every second, every minute, because I didn’t look at the time. I know that I saw the movie, I ate dinner. And she would say “No no no, you saw the film at this time, and then after that time you went out of the house. You ate dinner with Raffaele, and then there is this time where you did nothing, and this time where you were out of the house.” And I said, no, that’s not how it was. I was always in Raffaele’s apartment.
GCM:  [taking advantage of a tiny pause to slip in without exactly interrupting] Excuse me, excuse me, the pubblico ministero wants to hear precise details about the suggestions about what to say, and also about the cuffs, who gave them to you.
AK:  All right. What it was, was a continuous crescendo of these discussions and arguments, because while I was discussing with them, in the end they started to little by little and then more and more these remarks about “We’re not convinced by you, because you seem to be able to remember one thing but not remember another thing. We don’t understand how you could take a shower without seeing…” And then, they kept on asking me “Are you sure of what you’re saying? Are you sure? Are you sure? If you’re not sure, we’ll take you in front of a judge, and you’ll go to prison, if you’re not telling the truth.” Then they told me this thing about how Raffaele was saying that I had gone out of the house. I said look, it’s impossible. I don’t know if he’s really saying that or not, but look, I didn’t go out of the house. And they said “No, you’re telling a lie. You’d better remember what you did for real, because otherwise you’re going to prison for 30 years because you’re a liar.” I said no, I’m not a liar. And they said “Are you sure you’re not protecting someone?” I said no, I’m not protecting anyone. And they said “We’re sure you’re protecting someone.” Who, who, who, who did you meet when you went out of Raffaele’s house?” I didn’t go out. “Yes, you did go out. Who were you with?” I don’t know. I didn’t do anything. “Why didn’t you go to work?” Because my boss told me I didn’t have to go to work. “Let’s see your telephone to see if you have that message.” Sure, take it. “All right.” So one policeman took it, and started looking in it, while the others kept on yelling “We know you met someone, somehow, but why did you meet someone?” But I kept saying no, no, I didn’t go out, I’m not pro-pro-pro—-
GCM:  [taking advantage of her stammer] Excuse me, okay, we understand that there was a continuous crescendo.
AK:  Yes.
GCM:  As you said earlier. But if we could now get to the questions of the pubblico ministero, otherwise it will really be impossible to avoid some interruptions. If you want to be able to continue as tranquilly, as continuously as possible…
AK:  Okay, I’m sorry.
GCM:  So, if you could get to the questions about exactly when, exactly who… these suggestions, exactly what did they consist in? It seems to me…
AK:  Okay. Fine. So, they had my telephone, and at one point they said “Okay, we have this message that you sent to Patrick”, and I said I don’t think I did, and they yelled “Liar! Look! This is your telephone, and here’s your message saying you wanted to meet him!” And I didn’t even remember that I had written him a message. But okay, I must have done it. And they were saying that the message said I wanted to meet him. That was one thing. Then there was the fact that there was this interpreter next to me, and she was telling me “Okay, either you are an incredibly stupid liar, or you’re not able to remember anything you’ve done.” So I said, how could that be? And she said, “Maybe you saw something so tragic, so terrible that you can’t remember it. Because I had a terrible accident once where I broke my leg…”
GCM:  The interpreter said this to you?
AK:  The interpreter, yes.
GCM:  I also wanted to ask you because it isn’t clear to me: only the interpreter spoke to you, or the others also?
AK:  All the others also.
GCM:  Everyone was talking to you, all the others, but were they speaking in English?
AK:  No, in Italian.
GCM:  In Italian. And you answered in Italian?
AK:  In Italian, in English…
GCM:  And what was said to you in Italian, did it get translated to you in English?
AK:  A bit yes, a bit no, there was so much confusion, there were so many people all talking at the same time, one saying “Maybe it was like this, maybe you don’t remember,” another saying “No, she’s a stupid liar,” like that…
GCM:  But everything was eventually translated, or you understood some of it and answered right away?
AK:  It wasn’t like an interrogation, like what we’re doing now, where one person asks me a question and I answer. No. There were so many people talking, asking, waiting, and I answered a bit here and there.
GCM:  All right. You were telling us that the interpreter was telling you about something that had happened to her. [Interruption by Mignini.] But you need to get back to the questions asked by the pubblico ministero. This isn’t a spontaneous declaration now. This is an examination. That means the pubblico ministero has asked you a question, always the same question, and we still haven’t really heard the answer to it.
AK:  Yes, sorry.
GCM:  Right, so you were saying that there was this continuous crescendo.
AK:  It’s difficult for me to say that one specific person said one specific thing. It was the fact that there were all these little suggestions, and someone was saying that there was the telephone, then there was the fact that… then more than anything what made me try to imagine something was someone saying to me “Maybe you’re confused, maybe you’re confused and you should try to remember something different. Try to find these memories that obviously you have somehow lost. You have to try to remember them. So I was there thinking, but what could I have forgotten? And I was thinking, what have I forgotten? what have I forgotten? and they were shouting “Come on, come on, come on, remember, remember, remember,” and boom! on my head. [Amanda slaps herself on the back of the head: End of video segment] “Remember!” And I was like—Mamma Mia! and then boom! [slaps head again] “Remember!”
GCM:  Excuse me, excuse me, please, excuse me…
AK:  Those were the cuffs.
GCM:  So, the pubblico ministero asked you, and is still asking you, who is the person that gave you these two blows that you just showed us on yourself?
AK:  It was a policewoman, but I didn’t know their names.
GM:  Go ahead, pubblico ministero.
GM:  So, now, I asked you a question, and I did not get an answer. You ... [interruptions]!
LG or CDV:  I object to that remark! That is a personal evaluation! Presidente! That is very suggestive. He is making an unacceptable conclusion. He can ask a question, but this is a personal opinion. It seems to me that she did answer. She answered for a good five minutes.
GCM:  Sorry, but I said that we were supposed to avoid interruptions, that we weren’t supposed to interrupt when someone was speaking—
LG or CDV:  But—
GCM:  Wait—avvocato, excuse me, please, let’s try to avoid these moments which don’t help anybody and probably harm the person undergoing the examination because they create tension in the court—
GM:  When I am doing the cross-examination I would like—
GCM:  Please, pubblico ministero. This is another recommendation: let’s avoid analyses. Let’s take the answers as they come, later the right moment will come to say that from this examination, you did not obtain the answer that you expected, that the accused did not answer the questions. That is a later phase. At this moment, let’s stay with the answers that we have, even if they are not exhaustive, and return to the question, but avoiding personal evaluations of their value. Go ahead, publicco ministero, go ahead.
GM:  I would like to—
GCM:  Yes, yes, go ahead, return to your question. And then you can come back to it with more details.
GM:  The central point of that interrogation was the moment when the name of Patrick emerged. You spoke of suggestions, you spoke of pressure, you spoke of being hit, I asked you to give me a precise description of who gave you the blows, you need to describe this person. Was it a woman or a man? Who asked you the questions? Who was asking you the questions? There was the interpreter, who was the person who was translating. But the exam, the interrogation, who was doing it? Apart from the people who were going in and out. You must have understood that there was a murder, and this was a police station, and the investigation was hot, and what I am asking you is, who was actually conducting the interrogation?
GCM:  The pubblico ministero is asking you, you said that the two blows were given to me by someone whose name I don’t know. The pubblico ministero is asking you firstly if you can give a description of the person who hit you, if you saw her, and if you can give us a description. The second question—
AK:  So, when I—the person who was conducting the interrogation—
GCM:  That was the second question! You’re starting with the second question, that’s fine, go ahead, go ahead.
AK:  Oh, sorry…
GCM:  Go on, go on. The person who was conducting the interrogation…
AK:  Well, there were lots and lots of people who were asking me questions, but the person who had started talking with me was a policewoman with long hair, chestnut brown hair, but I don’t know her. Then in the circle of people who were around me, certain people asked me questions, for example there was a man who was holding my telephone, and who was literally shoving the telephone into my face, shouting “Look at this telephone! Who is this? Who did you want to meet?” Then there were others, for instance this woman who was leading, was the same person who at one point was standing behind me, because they kept moving, they were really surrounding me and on top of me. I was on a chair, then the interpreter was also sitting on a chair, and everyone else was standing around me, so I didn’t see who gave me the first blow because it was someone behind me, but then I turned around and saw that woman, and she gave me another blow to the head.
GCM:  This was the same woman with the long hair?
AK:  Yes, the same one.
GCM:  All right. Are you finished? Tell me if you have something to add.
AK:  Well, I already answered.
GCM:  Fine, fine, all right. Go ahead, pubblico ministero.
GM:  I’ll go on with the questions. In the minutes it mentions three people, plus the interpreter. Now, you first said that they suggested things to you. What exactly do you mean by the word “suggestion”, because from your description, I don’t see any suggestion. I mean, what is meant by the Italian word “suggerimento”, I don’t find it.
GCM:  [quelling them] Excuse me, excuse me, please, please, excuse me, excuse me! Listen, the pubblico ministero is asking you: “suggestions”, you also mentioned words that were “put in your mouth”, versions, things to say, circumstances to describe.
The pubblico ministero is asking two things: who made the suggestions, and what exactly were you told to say? }}
AK:  All right. It seems to me that the thoughts of the people standing around me, there were so many people, and they suggested things to me in the sense that they would ask questions like: “Okay, you met someone!” No, I didn’t. They would say “Yes you did, because we have this telephone here, that says that you wanted to meet someone. You wanted to meet him.” No, I don’t remember that. “Well, you’d better remember, because if not we’ll put you in prison for 30 years.” But I don’t remember! “Maybe it was him that you met? Or him? You can’t remember?” It was this kind of suggestion.
GCM:  When you say they said “Maybe you met him?”, did they specify names?
AK:  Well, the important fact was this message to Patrick, they were very excited about it. So they wanted to know if I had received a message from him—
[Interruptions]
GCM:  Please, please!
[Interruptions, multiple voices]
CDV:  It’s not possible to go on this way! [Mignini yells something at dalla Vedova]
GCM:  Please, please, excuse me, excuse me!
??:  I’m going to ask to suspend the audience! I demand a suspension of five minutes!
GCM:  Excuse me, excuse me! Please!
CDV:  Viva Dio, Presidente!
GM:  Presidente, I’m trying to do a cross-examination, and I must have the conditions that allow me to do it! The defense keeps interrupting.
??:  That’s true!
GCM:  Excuse me, excuse me, please—
GM:  We’re asking for a suspension!
GCM:  Just a moment, excuse me. I’ve heard all the demands and suggestions, now the Court will decide. So.
[Several moments of silence, during which Amanda murmurs in a very tiny voice: “Scusa.”]
GCM:  I want to point out that the accused offers answers to every question. She could always refuse to respond. She is answering, and that doesn’t mean she has to be asked about the same circumstances again and again. She is not a witness. The accused goes under different rules. We have to accept the answers—
??:  But—
GCM:  Please, please! We have to accept the answers given by the accused. She can stop answering at any time. At some point we simply have to move on to different questions. One circumstance is being asked again, the accused answered. The regularly, the tranquillity, the rituality of the court, of the process, has to be respected. The pubblico ministero was asking about suggestions. [To Amanda] If you want a suspension we can do it right away.
AK:  No, I’m fine.
GCM:  So the pubblico ministero was asking about the suggestions. All right?
AK:  Sure.
GCM:  So, you were the one who gave the first indication, introducing this generic pronoun “him”? This “him”, did they say who it could be?
AK:  It was because of the fact that they were saying that I apparently had met someone and they said this because of the message, and they were saying “Are you sure you don’t remember meeting THIS person, because you wrote this message.”
GCM:  In this message, was there the name of the person it was meant for?
AK:  No, it was the message I wrote to my boss. The one that said “Va bene. Ci vediamo piu tardi. Buona serata.”
GCM:  But it could have been a message to anyone. Could you see from the message to whom it was written?
AK:  Actually, I don’t know if that information is in the telephone. But I told them that I had received a message from Patrick, and they looked for it in the telephone, but they couldn’t find it, but they found the one I sent to him.
GCM:  I also wanted to ask you for the pubblico ministero, you wrote this message in Italian. I wanted to ask you, since you are an English speaker, what do you do when you wrote in Italian? Do you first think in English, and then translate into Italian, or do you manage to think directly in Italian?
AK:  No, at that time, I first thought in English, then I would translate, and then write.
GCM:  So that clarifies that phrase. Go ahead, pubblico ministero, but I think we’ve exhausted the question.
GM:  Yes, yes. I just wanted one concept to be clear: that in the Italian language, “suggerire” means “indicate”, someone who “suggests” a name actually says the name and the other person adopts it. That is what “suggerimento” is, and I…so my question is, did the police first pronounce the name of Patrick, or was it you? And was it pronounced after having seen the message in the phone, or just like that, before that message was seen?
??:  Objection! Objection!
GM:  On page 95, I read—
CDV:  Before the objection, what was the question?
GM:  The question was: the question that was objected was about the term “suggerimento”. Because I interpret that word this way: the police say “Was it Patrick?” and she confirms that it was Patrick. This is suggestion in the Italian language.
GCM:  Excuse me, please, excuse me. Let’s return to the accused. What was the suggestion, because I thought I had understood that the suggestion consisted in the fact that Patrick Lumumba, to whom the message was addressed, had been identified, they talked about “him, him, him”. In what terms exactly did they talk about this “him”? What did they say to you?
AK:  So, there was this thing that they wanted a name. And the message—
GCM:  You mean, they wanted a name relative to what?
AK:  To the person I had written to, precisely. And they told me that I knew, and that I didn’t want to tell. And that I didn’t want to tell because I didn’t remember or because I was a stupid liar. Then they kept on about this message, that they were literally shoving in my face saying “Look what a stupid liar you are, you don’t even remember this!” At first, I didn’t even remember writing that message. But there was this interpreter next to me who kept saying “Maybe you don’t remember, maybe you don’t remember, but try,” and other people were saying “Try, try, try to remember that you met someone, and I was there hearing “Remember, remember, remember,” and then there was this person behind me who—it’s not that she actually really physically hurt me, but she frightened me…
GCM:  “Remember!” is not a suggestion. It is a strong solicitation of your memory. Suggestion is rather…
AK:  But it was always “Remember” following this same idea, that…
GCM:  But they didn’t literally say that it was him!
AK:  No. They didn’t say it was him, but they said “We know who it is, we know who it is. You were with him, you met him.”
GCM:  So, these were the suggestions.
AK:  Yes.
GCM:  Go ahead, pubblico ministero.
GM:  I object here on the dynamics, because here there’s a contrast…well… per carita—[Brief interruption from GCM]—From Amanda’s answer, it emerges that there was this cell phone and this message and this “Answer, answer,” whereas in the minutes of the Dec 17 interrogation, page 95, we find: The police could not have suggested—[Arguing, everyone speaking, Maresca, Pacelli etc., some saying that they need to know the exact page, it’s different in their version. ]
GCM:  While the pubblico ministero is talking, let’s avoid interrupting him. It’s true that the pages are different, but still, if you can’t find the page, ask for a moment’s pause, don’t interrupt the reading.
GM:  So, on line number one, two, three, four…
GCM:  Pubblico ministero, don’t worry about the lines, please read.
GM:  [reading] She said: “I accused Patrick and no one else because they were continually talking about Patrick.” Suggesting, to use Amanda’s words. I asked: “The police, the police could not suggest? And the interpreter, was she shouting the name of Patrick? Sorry, but what was the police saying?” Knox: “The police were saying, ‘We know that you were in the house. We know you were in the house.’ And one moment before I said Patrick’s name, someone was showing me the message I had sent him.” This is the objection. There is a precise moment. The police were showing her the message, they didn’t know who it was—
GCM:  Excuse me, excuse me pubblico ministero [talking at the same time] excuse me, excuse me, the objection consists in the following: [to Amanda], when there are contrasts or a lack of coincidence with previous statements, be careful to explain them.
AK:  Okay.
GCM:  Do you confirm the declarations that the pubblico ministero read out?
AK:  I explained it better now.
GCM:  You explained it better now. All right pubblico ministero. Go ahead.
GM:  So, let’s move forward.
AK:  Okay.
GM:  Now, what happened next? You, confronted with the message, gave the name of Patrick. What did you say?
AK:  Well, first I started to cry. And all the policemen, together, started saying to me, you have to tell us why, what happened? They wanted all these details that I couldn’t tell them, because in the end, what happened was this: when I said the name of “Patrick”, I suddenly started imagining a kind of scene, but always using this idea: images that didn’t agree, that maybe could give some kind of explanation of the situation. I saw Patrick’s face, then Piazza Grimana, then my house, then something green that they told me might be the sofa. Then, following this, they wanted details, they wanted to know everything I had done. But I didn’t know how to say. So they started talking to me, saying, “Okay, so you went out of the house, okay, fine, so you met Patrick, where did you meet Patrick?” I don’t know, maybe in Piazza Grimana, maybe near it. Because I had this image of Piazza Grimana. “Okay, fine, so you went with him to your house. Okay, fine. How did you open the door?” Well, with my key. “So you opened the house”. Okay, yes. “And what did you do then?” I don’t know. “But was she already there?” I don’t know. “Did she arrive or was she already there?” Okay. “Who was there with you?” I don’t know. “Was it just Patrick, or was Raffaele there too?” I don’t know. It was the same when the pubblico ministero came, because he asked me: “Excuse me, I don’t understand. Did you hear the sound of a scream?” No. “But how could you not have heard the scream?”. I don’t know, maybe my ears were covered. I kept on and on saying I don’t know, maybe, imagining…
GCM:  [Stopping her gently] Okay, okay. Go ahead, pubblico ministero.
CDV?:  I’d like to ask a question, I’d like to make an objection about—
GCM?:  All right, so—
GM:  Is it a question or an objection? [crossing, arguing voices]
GCM:  Please, no interruptions.
CDV?:  [stronger] I said, I am asking a question and making an objection—
GCM:  But, excuse me, let’s stay with essentials. Let’s hear what the pubblico ministero has to say, and then we’ll see. That’s a premise.
GM:  I appeal to the court that this is making the examination impossible.
GCM:  Please, please, sorry. Go ahead.
GM:  I am trying to understand. In the interro—[he breaks off in mid-word, I think dalla Vedova must have stood up again.]
GCM:  But it’s not possible to hinder things this way, avvocato. Excuse me. Why?
CDV?:  [hard to hear because he’s speaking at the same time as GCM] The defense would like to formally ask for a break [?]
GCM:  We haven’t even heard what he is trying to say yet. You can’t make preventive objections! I’m sorry, avvocato.
CDV?:  I’m not making an objection—
GCM:  [really trying to stop him but not succeeding, CDV goes on talking at the same time] Please, please avvocato, no no no no, the pubblico ministero is speaking. [GM also says some words] Excuse me, excuse me.
CDV?:  The suggestions of the PM before asking the question are inopportune, because he is suggesting and making suggestive…
GCM:  Please, please, excuse me, excuse me! [He really, really needs a gavel to bang!]
GM:  [some words]
GCM:  Please, pubblico ministero! We are creating useless moments—
GM:  [some words]
GCM:  [much louder] Please, pubblico ministero! Please! Now, excuse me.
GM or CDV:  Please explain this concept to me.
GCM:  Please, please! [He finally obtains silence] I understand that when these interruption happens, the tone gets a bit louder, but that is not helpful. [Interruption] Please, please—but we are getting the impression that the objections are preventive. So while the pubblico ministero is speaking, which he has every right to do in this phase, and the defense already had their chance to do it, and they weren’t interrupted yesterday, so we ask for equal treatment today, at the present moment of the examination of the accused. And the tone should always remain cordial without giving the impression of a—
CDV:  Yes, yes, no, no. But it’s just that, I am asking that—
GCM:  Please, avvocato. There’s no reason. We are trying to reconcile the interests of all parties, we are gathering circumstances on which the different parties are called to make analyses and the Court to decide. This will be helpful for everyone. Go ahead.
GM:  The question is this: You say, you just told me a little while ago, that… the police—I’m trying to—well, I have to give a little introduction so she understands my question. You said “they found this message and they asked me whom it was to, if it was true or not true.” And you answered. Then the police obviously goes forward with their questions. “So, tell us”. And you…you just told me, I can’t read it, obviously I don’t have the transcription right here, but, I might be making a mistake, I don’t know, but you were saying that you remembered Piazza Grimana. Did you really say that?
AK:  Yes.
GCM:  Please, please, excuse me, there, now what the accused is saying is: “On the basis of these elements, I tried to reconstruct a scene that could be verified.” In these terms, not because she… She mentally elaborated, with her imagination: this is what I understood, how the scene could be realized, containing those elements that had come up.
AK:  Certainly.
GCM:  But she wasn’t speaking of an effective memory of circumstances that had effectively occurred in her perception. That is the meaning of the response of the accused.
AK:  Certo.
GM:  But you said that you remembered Piazza Grimana.
AK:  I had an image of Piazza Grimana.
GM:  An image of Piazza Grimana, that’s right. Now listen, in the interrogation, page 95, the same interrogation, but the same expression turns up in other places, I can give references if necessary…

[Start of 6:54 minute video segment] ...I asked this question: Why did you throw out an accusation of this type? In the confrontations with Mr. Lumumba (I was continuing and you answered right away): “I was trying, I had the possibility of explaining the message in my phone. He had told me not to come to work.” Perfectly normal things. So, faced with a perfectly normal circumstance, “My boss texted me to tell me not to come to work and I answered him,” you could have just stated that. End of response. Instead, faced with the message, and the questions of the police, you threw out this accusation. So I am asking you, why start accusing him when you could calmly explain the exchange of messages? Why did you think those things could be true? }}
AK:  I was confused.
GM:  You have repeated that many times. But what does it mean? Either something is true, or it isn’t true. Right now, for instance, you’re here at the audience, you couldn’t be somewhere else. You couldn’t say “I am at the station.” You are right here, right now.
AK:  Certainly. [Some noise]
GCM:  The question is clear.
AK:  Can I answer?
GCM:  [quelling noise] Excuse me, excuse me! Please, go ahead.
AK:  My confusion was because firstly, I couldn’t understand why the police was treating me this way, and then because when I explained that I had spent the whole time with Raffaele, they said “No, you’re a liar”. It was always this thing that either I didn’t remember or I was lying. The fact that I kept on and on repeating my story and they kept saying “No, you’re going to prison right now if you don’t tell the truth,” and I said “But I’ve told the truth,” “No, you’re a liar, now you’re going to prison for 30 years because either you’re a stupid liar or you forgot. And if it’s because you forgot, then you’d better remember what happened for real, right now.” This is why I was confused. Because I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand why. I didn’t understand anything any more. I was so scared and impressed by all this that at some point I thought What the heck, maybe they’re right, maybe I forgot.
GM:  So, and then, you accused Lumumba of murder. This is the conclusion.

GM:  I wanted to spend a moment on one last question, maybe the last but I don’t know, about the morning of the 6th.
AK:  Okay.
GM:  There’s another thing I didn’t understand. You said pressure was put on you, and there were suggestions, you explained today exactly what those consisted in, to say the name of Patrick and to accuse Patrick. Then you wrote a memorandum in which you confirm everything. And you weren’t under pressure right then. Why didn’t you just say: “I falsely accused someone.” Someone who was in prison, who was put in prison, maybe for a long time. Can you explain this to me?
AK:  Certo.
CDV?:  Can I make an objection? Very, very calmly and without animosity?
GCM:  Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you [for the calm, no doubt]. Thank you.
CDV?:  It seems to me that the pubblico ministero, in presenting his questions, always makes references which go as far as actually suggesting the answers, and also—
GM:  Well it is a cross-examination.
GCM:  Please, please let’s avoid interruptions and let each person express what he has to say. Go ahead, avvocato.
CDV?:  In the question he just asked, he mentions the memorandum and says it confirms. Now, this might be a specific question, but it should not be an assertion on the part of the pubblico ministero, followed by another question. If we look in the minutes, we find a series of unilateral declarations which all go to show what interests the pubblico ministero. To my mind, this mentality goes against our way of examining the accused. I just want to make this clear.
GCM:  All right, taking into account these remarks, the pubblico ministero’s question remains. It could be rephrased like this: during the 5th and the 6th, you said there were pressures, and the name of Patrick Lumumba emerged as also being involved in these events. But as the pubblico ministero notes, you then you wrote the memorandum spontaneously. We heard that you yourself asked for paper to be able to write it.
AK:  Certainly.
GCM:  And writing with this liberty, you even referred to it as a gift, these elements which had already emerged, you reasserted them, and this involvement of Patrick Lumumba. What the pubblico ministero is asking is: how did you—this question was already asked yesterday—in these different circumstances, you weren’t in the room any more, there wasn’t any pressure, why didn’t the truth somehow get stabilized?
AK:  Yes, yes. In fact, what happened is that I had literally been led to believe that somehow, I had forgotten something real, and so with this idea that I must have forgotten, I was practically convinced myself that I really had forgotten. And these images, that I was actually forcing myself to imagine, were really lost memories. So, I wasn’t sure if those images were reality or not, but explaining this to the police, they didn’t want to listen to the fact that I wasn’t sure. They treated me as though I had now remembered everything and everything was fine and I could now make a declaration in the tribunal against someone, to accuse someone. I didn’t feel sure about that. I didn’t feel—
GCM:  Excuse me, but in the memorandum, do you remember what you wrote about Patrick? Because maybe it wasn’t precise…
GM:  [Interrupting] I want—I want—I want to contest this point. Two points in the memorandum. If I’m not mistaken, you weren’t a witness right then. You had been the object of an arrest warrant. You had been arrested. You know the difference between a suspect and a witness. You weren’t a witness. Not any longer. So in the memorandum—
CDV?:  One moment—[hard to hear] Does she know the difference?
GM:  Can I continue? Sorry, avvocato, but I’m asking questions! Can I continue? He’s continually—
GCM:  Sorry, sorry, go ahead.
GM:  This is impossible!
GCM:  Please, pubblico ministero, go ahead, go ahead.
GM:  I am interrogating. I am interrogating. Now I’m distracted. Now, the difference between a suspect and a witness—a person informed of the facts. You said: “I made these declarations so that I could leave, so I could be—” but instead, you were arrested. And you wrote the memorandum after you had been arrested. And you wrote two sentences: I’ll read them. “I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that events that could have taken place in my home with Patrick.” [In Italian: “I confirm…”] Do you know what the word “confirm” means in Italian? “In the flashbacks that I’m having, I see Patrick as the murderer.” There wasn’t any policeman with you when you wrote that. No one. You wrote that in complete liberty. Do you know how to explain to me why? And this is even more decisive than what you said some hours earlier. Can you explain this?
AK:  I couldn’t even explain to myself why I had these images in my head, because I didn’t know if they were memories or not. And I want to say that if I made these declarations, that they asked me to sign and everything, I did it, but I wanted in the memorandum to explain my doubt, this fact that I wasn’t sure about it, because no one ever wanted to listen when I said listen, I don’t know.
GCM?:  Effectively the memorandum was correcting what had been said, and these doubts arose.
GM:  Do you have lapses of memory? At that time did you ever have lapses of memory?
AK:  Did I have what?
GM:  Lapses of memory.
AK:  Oh, lapses of memory.
GM:  Lapses of memory. Moments where you couldn’t remember things that you had done. “What did I do yesterday? I don’t know.”
AK:  [Laughing] I’ve had that problem all my life.
GM:  What?
AK:  I’ve had that problem all my life. I can’t remember where I put my keys.
GM:  So it happened to you at other times? Explain it to me. You previously mixed up things, didn’t know whether you had dreamed things or they were real?
AK:  No, not that part about the imagination! I would forget for example what I ate yesterday for dinner, yes, that happened to me, but not to actually imagine things.
GM:  To imagine something that hadn’t really happened, that never happened to you.
AK:  No. I never had that problem, but then, I had never been interrogated like that before.
GM:  Okay, so when you had this flashback, you saw Patrick as the murderer. What was this flashback?
AK:  The flashback consisted in this image of Patrick’s actual face, not that I imagined an actual act, I imagined his face. Then I had this image of Piazza Grimana, then an image of Patrick’s face, then I always had this idea that they wanted to say: these images explain the fact that you met him, and you brought him home, and maybe you heard something and covered your ears, and it was always like this, not that I actually imagined having seen Meredith’s death. It was these images that came by themselves, to explain…
GM:  I see. All right. I take note of what you’re saying. Now, let’s talk about your memorandum from the 7th, still written in total autonomy, without anyone around you. You wrote: “I didn’t lie when I said that I thought the murderer was Patrick. At that moment I was very stressed and I really did think that it was Patrick.” Then you add “But now I know that I can’t know who the murderer is, because I remember that I didn’t go home.” Can you explain these concept to me?
AK:  Yes, because I was convinced that I somehow could have forgotten. So in that moment, I—
GM:  So what you had said might have actually been true?
AK:  Yes.
AK:  Yes, it could have been true, but at that moment. But then, when I was able to rethink the facts, it became clearer and clearer that it didn’t make sense, that it was absolutely ridiculous that I could have thought that or imagined it.
GM:  But didn’t you feel the need to intervene to get an innocent person out of prison? You didn’t feel the need?
AK:  But the police had already called me a liar, and I didn’t feel they were listening to me. Also because in the Questura—
GM:  But you were in prison!
AK:  But in the Questura, I had already told them: Look, I’m not sure about this, and they didn’t want to hear that. They didn’t want to listen, because they said to me “No, you’ll remember it later. You just need a little time to really remember these facts.” I told them no, I don’t think it’s like that, but they didn’t want to listen.
GM:  They didn’t believe you. But you, once you said that you remembered, [snaps fingers?] you could have just made a declaration or sent me another memorandum saying “No, I didn’t say the truth. Patrick is innocent.”
GCM:  Excuse me, we already had explanations about this.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Amazon Reviews: Are Knox PR’s 1000 Dishonest Paid Reviews Losing Traction?

Posted by Our Main Posters

Amazon reader reviews may or may not dictate how the sales of a book make out.

Sales of the Sollecito and Knox books have been way below expectations despite dozens of glowing reviews - and by the way numerous repeats of the hoaxes and defamations.

At the same time sales of objective books on the facts of the case and the psychologies have been meeting expectations despite the absence of advertising or a paid-for PR campaign.

Here are some of the spontaneous review for the two books “Deceit” and “Dark Matter” by Nick van der Leek and Lisa Wilson.

By atlantic 1 “atlantic1” on June 3, 2015

This is an exceptionally-well-written, complex (but lucid and fast-paced) account of the murder of Meredith Kercher (a British exchange student) in Perugia, Italy, and the unconvincing behavior and at times multiple stories of the main suspects: Amanda Knox (the American roommate), Raffaele Sollecito (Knox’s Italian boyfriend at the time of the murder), and Rudy Guede (Ivory Coast native adopted by an Italian family, currently the only one serving time in Italy for the murder).

Other characters are prominently featured, along with a lot of background information from reputable sources.

What I really liked about the book is that many links throughout the text (in the Kindle edition that I purchased) send the reader to outside documents (e.g., photographs) that would otherwise take a while to research (warning: some visuals are pretty disturbing, but one always has the option of not clicking on the link).

The book has a fluid style and is absolutely engrossing, I highly recommend it.

By Leigh on June 8, 2015

Nick has done a superb job in ‘Deceit’ of reviewing, combining, comparing, and contrasting vast amounts of information from many different sources on Meredith Kercher’s case. As someone who has followed anything and everything of substance I could find on the case since 2007—I appreciate his massive effort, and certainly agree, some amount of speculation is required. What is especially effective about Nick’s speculations is that they are based on confirmed ‘knowns’ about the case from genuine sources such as investigations, witness testimony, interviews with Meredith’s friends, housemates, and others who knew AK (rarely spell out AK’s name since I hold extreme animus for that wrongly acquitted psychopath!).

While I don’t agree with every speculation of Nick’s—I have many of my own—I do appreciate that he examines what’s real. For everyone trying to follow the case, it’s been difficult to sift through the exhaustive amount of subterfuge, deceit, and duplicity from rabid AK fan club members, a professional ‘damage-control’ PR / media manipulation machine, lazy mainstream US media lapdogs, and AK’s lying family—people and organizations who clearly would stop at nothing to defend their favorite two murderers. The worst of them always show up to deliberately hurl their vile insults and spew hatred at anyone who doesn’t howl about the great Italian conspiracy perpetrated against the murderer AK, or who don’t constantly drool like a fool over AK’s beauty and brilliance. The AK jerks are certainly out in force at trying to bring down this book—they try and destroy anyone who seeks to get the truth out about Meredith’s murder and AK’s direct involvement in her death.

By S. Gleason on June 7, 2015

Thank you for reminding people of the truth Nick. Wonderful book. A breath of fresh air. Please don’t listen to propaganda being posted here in the reviews. Listen to the abundant case evidence against all three. Justice for Meredith and her family.

By M Thomson “Elizabeth” on June 2, 2015

This book is a interesting and fast paced read. Suspicion builds naturally as the author follows the two defendants in the hours before and the murder. Their actions and changing alibis are well documented here. Amanda Knox falsely accused Patrick Lumumba in a very short time just after learning Sollecito said she went out that night. I wonder if the one star reviewers would rather you not know this.

By Margaret Ganong on May 25, 2015

The author has a good grasp of the facts and makes a case that is far more convincing than the two recently and bafflingly acquitted Knox and Sollecito have ever been able to do. Indeed, one of the most compelling reasons to read this book is for its effort to set the written accounts of Knox and Sollecito side by side, revealing the many ways they don’t add up and are at odds with one another.

By Amazon Customer on May 25, 2015

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. I cannot wait for the next one in the series. There HAD to be more to this murder ... and I am now sure that there was more than one person involved. Poor Meredith ’ s family having to live with this. I just love the narrative that makes Nick’s books SO enjoyable.

By kris arnason on May 26, 2015

Nick van der Leek has written an extremely cohesive narrative about the tragic Meredith Kercher case. The author takes you through what likely happened that horrific night, and why Amanda Knox & Raffaele Sollecito’s stories don’t add up, all the while providing the reader with hundreds and hundreds of hyperlinked images, news reports, and audio clips, etc. that have been consolidated, collected and embedded in this one narrative. Everything sourced, right at your fingertips. A must read for people like me who have followed this case from the beginning and folks just getting interested and want to learn all they can. Thanks Nick! Looking forward to more from you about this case!

By Caroline on July 5, 2015

I bought this book because of the reviews! I’ve never done that before but I’m so intrigued by the almost angry tone to all of these one star reviews. It just makes me wonder if a nerve was hit. Somebody’s hiding something maybe? Anyway, I just have to read it now. Will come back with full review when I’m done.

By Amazon Customer on June 1, 2015

Finally! An honest book of what really happened to Meredith Kercher! Can Nick interview AK & RS on TV in the USA? I am sure he would ask REAL questions!

By Jeff “jeffski” on May 26, 2015

It is a disgrace that Amazon allows these Amanda Knox trolls a platform to spread hate and abuse people simply because they write a review for a book that these people disagree with. Amazon must act on these known frauds/cyber bullies who suppress and insult/abuse people on forums/Comments section and social media.

This book is a excellent read and obviously hits a nerve with Knox’s followers as the negative comments and abuse/insults aimed at author prove. Please look beyond the rent a hate mob and read the book and come to your own conclusion.

By Columbo on May 25, 2015

This is an excellent true crime story with highly accurate and precise detail of how Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede all killed Meredith Kercher. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to know the truth of this case in a very revealing and fast page turning account of what really happened in this case.

By Michela on May 30, 2015

Excellent read.

By Maria Chinnapan on May 26, 2015

A great read!, very down to earth appraisal of what may have happened. No nonsense and to the point

By MCD on May 31, 2015

Again this formidable true crime writer has come up trumps with an incredibly well researched interrogation of a crime that continues to baffle the world. The detailed sequence of events is painstakingly pieced together. I had only superficially followed this case when the news initially broke so have been fascinated by this book which has filled in many gaps and highlighted the inconsistencies in the behaviour of Amanda Knox and her boyfriend, who said what, who lied about what, etc.

In addition to the bare bones of the case, the author’s classic approach is the use true crime as a melting pot of evil and the extremes of human nature. He asks unsettling questions about human behaviour, herd mentality, apathy and our place in society - a society where a crime like this one can and does take place and despite all the investigation, the waters are still muddied in the deeper pools.

For those who appreciate that truth is stranger than fiction and like to delve deeper into these cases, the author brings it all together for you, with a dollop of enriching ‘food for thought’.

By Truth Seeker on May 26, 2015

It is the behavioural evidence which has always bothered me about this case, and it has always seemed that everything said/done by the ex defendants had to be explained away or justified. The author has cross referenced the two versions written by them in their memorials, and needless to say, there are major discrepancies.

Unless we expose the inconsistencies, then the two will have literally got away with murder. Legally this may be the case, but analysis provided by this book goes some way to keeping the memory of Meredith honoured, and ensuring that there are some still fighting for justice for her. Do buy the book- it has none of the obfuscation and image management that we have been subject to in the past years.

By Ipsos Maati on May 30, 2015

Why is Amanda Knox panicked about this book, and why did she try to have it banned?

Deceit shines light on the truth about the murder of Meredith Kercher, and the dishonest effort to free her.

Exonerated does not mean “innocent”.

By elizabeth on May 26, 2015

Deceit is a fascinating read no matter where you stand on the recent verdict. Fast paced but manages to bring a cohesive dialogue to days before and after the murder

By A. Futo “911 coincidence analyst” on May 26, 2015

Well written book by author Nick van der Leek, with all new research and links to original reporting and publicly available information about the murder Of Meredith Kercher.

Is Amanda Knox, the main suspect in the case, guilty of murdering her room mate as many believe, or was she railroaded by the prosecution, as claimed by her friends and family?

The author skilfully navigates the questions of motive, means, and evidence, starting with the premise that this is a case that begins with and is marked by many layers of deceit, as Knox first accuses an innocent man, Patrick Lumumba, then must lie and keep on lying to distance herself from the crime she implicates herself with by admitting to her presence at the scene.

Her co-accused, Raffaele Sollecito withdraws then confirm her alibi, and the other person evidence shows was involved in the sexual assault that preceded the murder, Rudy Guede, also tries to distance himself by running away then denying her involvement, then accusing the two of them in a letter to the media.

The author’s hypothesis of what happened is based on a finely rendered psychological evaluation of Amanda Knox. No matter what the final decision will be, this is a case that will be discussed for many years to come. I look forward to his next book of the series.

By Leigh on June 25, 2015

After more than 7 years of following Meredith Kercher’s murder case closely as the saga has wound through the arcane Italian justice system, I am completely convinced that AK & RS are her two other murderers who have ultimately escaped justice. Their final acquittal has not changed anything for me. Yet I’ve been asked by others who have more than a slight interest as to why is it I’m so certain, what’s your 3-minute elevator speech? Well, an elevator speech doesn’t exist, but in ‘Dark Matter’ and its prequel, ‘Deceit’ and I hope, in more follow-up e-books on this case, a reader can get as close as possible to a comprehensive full-view, what-happened, tell-me-everything explanation without having to slog through over 1,000 pages of trial documents translated from original Italian and endless arguments from two deeply entrenched opposing sides. Trying to read through it all could easily take most of an interested person’s discretionary time for a lengthy period of their lives. And who needs that, right?

What’s special about ‘Dark Matter’ is how easy it is to read, how well the authors guide readers through crucial evidence while using a technique borrowed from Socrates—keep asking yourself common sense questions as you’re reading. ‘Dark Matter’ examines the early case from a big picture view—the most prominent evidence, the investigation, what happened in days before, and after Meredith’s murder, and what was the behavior like of those near Meredith? Then go further, examine what AK & RS wrote in their own books about the murder. Do they agree with each other or give themselves away by not agreeing in crucial areas? ‘Dark Matter’ creates these scenes while assisting readers in finding their own answers.

‘Dark Matter’ examines what is important to know, then asks readers to consider: ‘does it make sense?’ or ‘were these actions meant to deceive and lead investigators astray?’ ‘is there an innocent explanation?’ ‘does unusual behavior indicate guilt, youthful carelessness, or something else?’ ‘Dark Matter’ lays out salient evidence found during investigations, and continues to encourage readers to question its importance: ‘where does this evidence naturally lead?’ ‘can we tie the evidence and the behavior together to draw conclusions, and how do we do that?’

‘Dark Matter’ is exactly how I’d want someone to guide me through an enormous case if didn’t know much about it. Don’t tell me what to think, don’t try to persuade me towards your view—show me what is important to know—and I’ll decide for myself; in this, both authors excel.

One area where I completely disagree with the authors is their, what appears to be, complete acceptance of nonsense created by AK’s professional Seattle-based propaganda machine and American author Douglas Preston—these two parties had their own reasons to intentionally malign and destroy Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini. Their agendas were obvious to truth seekers—one sought to do ‘damage control and create a villain to take attention away from AK,’ the other, to leverage the murder to create interest in his own book.

Unfortunately this propaganda proved to be extremely effective, and was picked up by most US media outlets that then ran with the deception. Those who know the case from the pro-justice side are keenly aware of how this vicious, deceitful campaign against the prosecutor convinced tens of millions of Americans AK was an innocent who was framed. I hope the authors make an effort to learn how completely they have been deceived and correct these mistakes in future books in this series.

By JJ on July 3, 2005

Great book!! Highly recommended

By Sarah Breen on June 30, 2015

Research and writing are top notch! True investigative journalism into this controversial subject.

By Nicole church on June 27, 2015

I loved your book-you guys definitely did your research and systematically take the reader though some of the most damning evidence in this case. I was impressed at how you tied it all in with the theme of dark matter- very well done and thought provoking.

No need to apologize for your narrative;yes there are some f bombs but it made me respect you more for being authentic and your sarcasm is justified when it comes to this case. Like you both said it would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. You do a great job calling bulls*** on both murderers using example after example from their own words(in court,interviews,diaries,etc)

I am sure this book has the murderers supporters all in a tizzy- it is easy to spot their attempts to sabotage your deservedly 5 star reviews with their 1 stars. Just look for lots of exclamation points and words in all caps then move right along to the honest reviews that will really help you decide if this book is worth reading- and it certainly is.

Looking forward to your next book and thank you for being the stars that shine light on the truth 😊

By Columbo on June 26, 2015

Another really great book by Lisa Wilson and Nick van der Leek. In this easy to read and compelling book the key events, character aspects of Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede and the most significant evidence against them are all objectively weighed and analyzed. Additionally, in a very balanced view, the case for Amanda Knox as promoted by her supporters is also reviewed so readers can make up their own minds. But there is only one conclusion: all three killers murdered Meredith Kercher (RIP). I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to know even more about this case.

By kris arnason on July 5, 2015

Dark Matter is a must read for everyone wanting to know more about the murder of Meredith Kercher. Those who believed in the lies & cover up of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s multi million dollar PR campaigns will have their eyes opened after reading this excellent book.

By JJ “jj0388” on July 3, 2015

great book!! highly recommended

By A. Futo “911 coincidence analyst”
I read many crime books, and this is one of the really good ones on the case. Amanda Knox’s strange behavior and lies, accusing Patrick Lumumba, her relationship with Meredith, all reflected in the “Dark Matter” of her psychology.

She simply is not very believable in her book, and her media appearances have been disasters which is why she’s withdrawn in hiding. Her father hired a PR firm to manage her image, and in the process influenced many sad, gullible people who still try to negate any criticism. Even though Amanda Knox has ‘won’ her case, why are they still posting nonsensical, abusive reviews of a book they never read?

One example, but this is important to me. Her father said that Meredith gained advanced three levels in karate and would not have gone without a struggle. A testimony to her character, but a reviewer writes “that’s an orange belt, beginner’s level”. Sorry, but the people who loved her say she would have fought to the end. So why the lack of defensive wounds, if she was being restrained by only one person?

In the struggle, she managed to injure Amanda Knox, who left her blood behind in the crime scene. (A bloody nose, ear stud pulled out? Left her lamp behind in the room to assist cleaning?) She was photographed with a scrape on her neck, and the police photograph taken on arrest shows the long scratch which she only partially covered with makeup on November 02. Her adoring fans call that a “hickey”, lol. Perhaps Lisa Wilson can collect these reviews as insight into their “Dark Matter” as well?

By GH2006 on June 22, 2015

This book is a perceptive analysis of the evidence in the murder case of Meredith Kercher. Nick van der Leek and Lisa Wilson take you through the court documents, statements made by the suspects as well as the DNA evidence among other things, which reveal the many lies and obfuscations by the public relations firm hired by the defendants as well as the ob-knox-ious murder-supporters who attack anyone who writes about the truth of this crime. (Shown by the flock of 1 star comments with long venomous attacks by haters who haven’t even read the book.)

Written with the same interesting, insightful, and at times entertaining way van der Leek and Wilson hook the reader in from beginning to end. I couldn’t pull myself away from this book that Nick generously gifted to me because this is not about making a profit for them but in getting the truth out there! (In stark contrast to the defendants who made millions selling their version of the crime.) Oh! And this book also shines a light on the way Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito obscure the truth in their own books. That was very interesting as well! I also enjoyed the first book DECEIT and looking forward to the next book! TY

By Bibliophile on June 21, 2015

Awesome humdinger of a book. This book will tell you the truth!

Friday, June 26, 2015

What No-Show Amanda Knox SHOULD Have Emailed Judge Nencini As Truthful Testimony in December 2013

Posted by Chimera

As the real thing really didnt work any better for Knox…


As is well known, Amanda Knox refused to attend her own appeal in Florence in 2013/2014.

This was a defence appeal by Knox herself and Sollecito against the 2009 conviction by Judge Giancarlo Massei’s trial court.  It was not a new trial, or a retrial, or even a prosecution appeal. It was an appeal DEMANDED by Knox and Sollecito.

While Knox refused to attend, she did send a long, rambling email to Lead Judge Nencini.  Judge Nencini tartly read out the email in court, and remarked that she could have delivered this in person and answered questions if she wanted it credibly on the record - after all, Sollecito was sitting right there and not scared out of his wits.

Kudos to fellow main posters Finn MacCool and SeekingUnderstanding for their original and well done posts on this ‘‘submission’‘

With a bit of fact checking, Knox’s email could have looked to the court and the media more like this.  Enjoy.

Court of Appeals of Florence section II Assise Proc. Pen, 11113

Letter sent to attorneys Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga via email Seattle, 15 December 2013

Attn: Honorable Court of Appeals of Florence

1. I have no doubt that my lawyers have explained and demonstrated the important facts of this case that prove my innocence and discredit the unjustified accusations of the prosecution and civil parties. I seek not to supplant their work; rather, even though I am not present to take part in this current phase of the judicial process, I feel compelled to share my own perspective as a six””year-long defendant and causation of Meredith’s injustice.

2. The Court has access to my previous declarations, and please disregard that whole ‘‘aggravated calunnia’’ in which Cassation says i framed Patrick to divert attention, or that pending calunnia charge claiming I falsely accused the police to sabotage the court proceedings.  I trust you will not be blinded by these things to come to this verdict.  I must repeat: I am innocent.  Because repeating it will help dissuade you from studying my lies too carefully.

3. According to my lawyers: I am not a murderer, I am not a rapist, I am not a thief or a plotter or an instigator, at least not until Cassation signs off on it. I did not kill Meredith or take part in her murder or have any prior or special knowledge of what occurred that night, (other than screaming, slit throat, and that the body was moved). I was not there for part of the time, and had nothing to do with it.

4. I am not present in the courtroom because I am afraid. Frederico Martini is probably still pissed that I gave him up; the court and jail officials don’t like my book; and I think there is still an open warrant on me for calunnia.  Also, without any employment or housing references, staying here may be tricky.  I have faith in your judgement, but am worried you are so poor a judge you will be blinded my the Prosecution’s vehemence.  I remember Judge Micheli: he was the wise Judge who found Guede guilty; he was the idiot Judge who ordered Raffaele and I to stand trial as accomplices.

5. My life being on the line, at least until I get parole, and having with others already suffered too much, I’ve rehearsed this story and attentively followed this process and gleaned the following facts that have emerged from the development of this case that I beg you not to dismiss when making your judgement:

6. No physical evidence places me in Meredith “˜s bedroom, the scene of the crime, because I define only that as the crime scene.  My DNA mixed with Meredith’s was in the bathroom and Filomena’s room, not Meredith’s.  Those bloody footprints cleaned away were in the hallway, not Meredith’s room.  Raffaele had one knife, and this other was at his flat, neither of which is Meredith’s room.  My lamp on Meredith’s floor had no fingerprints on it, and does not implicate me.  That DNA on Merdith’s bra, and bloody footprint on the bathmat only implicates my alibi witness (who refuses to be questioned), not me.  Those false alibis, false accusations, details I know about the crime, and phone records are not physical evidence, and did not happen in Meredith’s bedroom. Those ‘‘eyewitnesses’’ the Prosecution produced are not forensic evidence, and do not place me in Meredith’s room.

7. Meredith’s murderer left ample evidence of his presence in the brutal scenario, we made sure of that.  Heck, the police couldn’t even find my fingerprints in my own bedroom.

8. No evidence places me in the same brutal scenario, again, which I restrict to Meredith’s bedroom, and only actual physical evidence.  The prosecution has failed to explain how—with these restrictions—I could have participated in the aggression and murder””to have been the one to fatally wound Meredith””without leaving any genetic trace of myself. Just because i spend a lot of time talking about it, and am a C.S.I. fan, doesn’t mean I know how to remove evidence.  That is because it is impossible. It is impossible to identify and destroy all genetic traces of myself in a crime scene and retain all genetic traces of another individual, or so C.S.I. has taught me. Either I was there, or I wasn’t. My analysis of the crime scene answers this question: I wasn’t there.

9. My interrogation was illegal and produced a false “confession” that demonstrated my non-knowledge of the crime- The subsequent memoriali, for which I was wrongfully found guilty of slander, did not further accuse but rather recanted that false “confession.” Yes, I wrote out a false ‘‘confession’’ that accuses someone else.  Just as I testified to the prosecutor in prison and to my family members in prison when our conversations were being recorded without my knowledge. Dammit, give me some privacy.

10. My behavior after the discovery of the murder indicates my innocence, if you think creatively enough. I did not flee Italy when I had the chance, because (in my November 4th email), the police wouldn’t let me leave.  I stayed in Perugia and was at the police’s beck and call trying to think of answers for over 50 hours in four days, convinced that I could help them find the murderer, or at least someone who was ‘‘close enough’‘.  I never thought or imagined that repeatedly changing my story would fuel their suspicions. I did not hide myself or my feelings: when I needed sex, Rafael ‘‘embraced’’ me; when I was scared of being exposed, I cried; when I was angry that it wasn’t working, I swore and made insensitive remarks; when I was shocked, I paced or sat in silence, at least until I could find a new ‘‘best truth’‘; when I was trying to help, I evaded questions, consoled Meredith’s friends, especially her male friends, and tried to keep a positive attitude that this would blow over.

11. Upon entering the questura I had no understanding of my legal position, accompanying Raffaele to a witness summary session which I was not invited to. 20””years old and alone in a foreign country, I was, legally speaking, innocent and never expected to be suspected and subjugated to torture, and I wasn’t. I was told I was a witness, then after I placed myself at the crime scene I was told I was a suspect. I was questioned for a prolonged period in the middle of the night and in Italian, a language I barely knew, and that questioning includes the time I was sleeping or getting tea.  I denied legal counsel- still The Court of Cassation deemed the interrogation and the statements produced from it was inadmissible. In my memoir, WTBH; I was lied to, yelled at, threatened, slapped twice on the back of the head. I told myself I had witnessed the murder and was suffering from amnesia. I told myself that if I didn’t succeed in ‘‘remembering’’ what happened to Meredith that night, I would never see my family again. I browbeat myself into confusion and despair, to sell to the media at a later date. When you berate, intimidate, lie to, threaten, confuse, and coerce someone in believing they are wrong, you are not going to find the truth, but again, that is not what happened here.

12. The police used tea and kindness to coerce me into signing a false “confession” that was without sense and should never have been considered a legitimate investigative lead. In this fragmentary and confused statement the police identified Patrick Lumumba as the murderer because we had exchanged text messages, the meaning of which I let the police wrongfully interpret (”˜Civediamo piu tardi. Buona serata’). The statement lacked a clear sequence of events, corroboration with any physical evidence, and fundamental information like: how and why the murder took place, if anyone else was present or involved, what happened afterward””it supplied partial, contradictory information and as the investigators would discover a little later, when Patrick Lumumba’s defense lawyer produced proof of him incontestable alibi, it was obviously inaccurate and unreliable.  After over 50 hours of rehearsing the questioning over four days, I was mentally exhausted and I was confused.

13. This coerced and illegitimate statement, which I dreamed up, was used by the police to arrest and detain a clearly innocent man with an iron-clad alibi with whom I had a friendly professional relationship, (at least until I destroyed his life). This coerced and illegitimate statement was used to convict me of slander.  Judge Hellmann saw that this statement was coerced, and threw out my calunnia conviction .... I mean he increased the sentence .... never mind.The prosecution and civil parties are accusing and blaming me, a result of their own overreaching.

14. Experience, case studies, and the law recognize that one may be coerced into giving a false"confession” because of torture.  I’m not sure why this applies to my case, but damn, it sure sounds impressive.

15. This is a universal problem. According to the National Registry of Exoneration, in the United States 78% of wrongful murder convictions that are eventually overturned because of exonerating forensic evidence involved false “confessions.” Almost 8 in 10 wrongfully convicted persons were coerced by police into implicating themselves and others in murder. I am not alone: Susan Smith and Casey Anthony ‘‘falsely confessed’’ that other people did it too.  And exonerating forensic evidence is often as simple as no trace of the wrongfully convicted person at the scene of the crime, but rather the genetic and forensic traces of a different guilty party””just like every piece of forensic evidence identifies not me, but Rudy Guide.

16. In the brief time Meredith and I were roommates and friends we never fought.  Roommates, not friends.

17. Meredith was my friend, not that I was her friend. She was kind to me, helpful, generous, fun, and in retrospect, I should have been more of the same.  She never criticized me. She never gave me so much as a dirty look, even as I left the place a mess, and even when I flirted with her boyfriend, or she took my job at the bar.

18. But the prosecution claims that a rift was created between Meredith and I because of cleanliness. This is a distortion of the facts. Please refer to the testimonies of my housemaster and Meredith’s British friends. None of them ever witnessed or heard about Meredith and I fighting, arguing, disliking each other. None of them ever claimed Meredith was a confrontational clean-freak, or I a confrontational slob. Laura Masotho testified that both Meredith and I only occasionally cleaned, whereas she and Filomena Romanelli were more concerned with cleanliness. Meredith’s British friends testified that Meredith had once told them that she felt a little uncomfortable about finding the right words to kindly talk tome, her new roommate, about cleanliness in the bathroom we shared. The prosecution would have you believe this is motivation for murder. But this is a terrifying distortion of the facts, as proving motive it not necessary—anywhere.

19. I did not carry around Rafael’s kitchen knife.  That’s what men are for, to do the lifting for me.

20. This claim by the prosecution, crucial to their theory, is uncorroborated by any physical evidence or witness testimony. I didn’t fear the streets of Perugia and didn’t need to carry around with me a large, cumbersome weapon which would have ripped my cloth book bag to shreds. My book bag showed no signs of having carried a bloody weapon. The claim that he would have insisted I carry a large chef’s knife is not just senseless, but a disturbing indication of how willing the prosecution is to defy objectivity and reason in order to sustain a mistaken and disproven theory.  Yes, i can positively disprove a theory I know nothing about.

21. It is yet another piece of invented “evidence”, another circumstance of theory fabricated to order, because having discovered nothing else, the prosecution could only invent: phone records, false alibis, false statements, false accusations.

22. I had no Contact with Rudy Guide, even though I mention in my book having seen him twice, and a third time in the next paragraph.

23. Like many youth in Perugia, I had once crossed paths with Rudy Guide. He played basketball with the young men who lived in the apartment below us. Meredith and I had been introduced to him together. Perhaps I had seen him amongst the swarms of students who crowded the Perugian streets and pubs in the evenings, but that was it. We didn’t have each other’s phone number, we didn’t meet in private, we weren’t acquaintances. I never bought drugs from Rudy Guide or anyone else. I was having sex with Federico for drugs, which isn’t the same thing.  The phone records show no connection. There are no witnesses who place us together, except my statement here. The prosecution claims I convinced Rudy Guide to commit rape and murder, completely ignoring the fact that we didn’t even speak the same language. He has lived in Perguia for 15 years, and I am a student of Italian. Once again, the prosecution is relying upon a disturbing and unacceptable pattern of distortion of the objective evidence.

24. I am not a psychopath.  That evaluation in 2008 was unfair, as I didn’t get a chance to prepare my spontaneous answers.

25. There is no short list to the malicious and unfounded slanders I have enjoyed over the course of this legal process. In trial, in the media I have been called no less than:

“Conniving; manipulating; man””eater; narcissist; enchantress; duplicitous; adulterer; drug addict; an explosive mix of drugs, sex, and alcohol; dirty; witch; murderer; slanderer; demon; depraved; imposter; promiscuous; succubus; evil; dead inside; pervert; dissolute; a wolf in sheep’s clothing; rapist; thief; reeking of sex; Judas; she-devil;

26. I have never demonstrated anti-social, aggressive, violent, or behavior. Throwing rocks at cars, writing rape stories, and staging break ins are not violent or anti-social.  I am not addicted to sex or drugs.  In fact, Federico Martini hasn’t given me any since I was arrested.  Upon my arrest I was tested for drugs and the results were negative. I am not a split-personality One does not adopt behavior spontaneously.

27. This is a fantasy. This is uncorroborated by any objective evidence or testimony. The prosecution and civil parties created and pursued this character assassination because they have nothing else to show you. They have neither proof, nor logic, nor the facts on their side. They only have their ‘‘evidence’’ against me, and my personal opinions about them. They want you to think I’m a monster because I am telling you they think I am a monster.  it is easy to condemn a monster. It is easy to dismiss a monster’s defense as deception. But the prosecution and civil parties think I’m both severely mistaken and wrong. I have condemned them without proof of wrongdoing, and I seek to convince you to condemn them without proof of wrongdoing.

28. If the prosecution truly had a case against me, there would be no need for these theatrics. Never mind that this is my own appeal, and I ‘‘should’’ be demonstrating why the 2009 trial verdict is unjust.  If I had a case, there would be no need for smoke and mirrors to distract you from the mountains of physical evidence against me. But because this evidence exists that proves my guilt, I would seek to deceive you with these impassioned, but completely inaccurate and unjustified pronouncements. Because I am not a murderer (yet), I would seek to mislead you into convicting me by charging your emotions, by painting me as an innocent until proven guilty, but not as a monster.

29. The prosecution and civil parties are committing injustices against the Kerchers because they cannot bring themselves to admit, even to themselves, that they’ve made a terrible mistake, namely, that the murder was premeditated. Again, it is my own appeal, but they are persecuting me.

30. The Court has seen that the prosecution and civil parties will not hear criticism of their mistakes, by people who won’t attend their appeal.

31. The Court has seen that the prosecution jumped to conclusions at the very start of their investigation: they interrogated and arrested innocent people and claimed “Case Closed"before any evidence could be analyzed, before bothering to check alibis.  As proof of this, they called Raffaele to the police station (at his leisure), to clear up discrepencies in his alibi.  Then when he claimed I lied, Rita Ficarra then asked me for an explanation.  Those brutes!  Then they hauled in Patrick just because in ‘‘confessed’’ several times that he did it.

32. The prosecutor and investigators were under tremendous pressure to solve the mystery of what happened to Meredith as soon as possible. The local and International media was breathing down the necks of these detectives. Their reputations and careers were to be made or broken. In spite of that, they still saw my mistakes. Under pressure, they admitted to as few mistakes as possible and committed themselves to a theory founded upon disproving my mistakes.

33. Had they not jumped to conclusions based on nothing but Raffaele’s changing alibi and my false accusations, they would have discovered definitive and undeniable evidence of not Patrick Lumumba, but of Rudy Guede, Raffaele Sollecito, and Amanda Knox. We would not be here over six years later debating clues my lawyers claim are inconclusive and unreliable.  Had we plead guilty we would have been spared the cost, anguish and suffering, not only of Raffaele’s and my family, but especially of Meredith’s family as well.

34. My accusations are unworthy of judicial or public confidence. In over six years I have failed to provide a consistent, evidence-driven, corroborated theory of the crime, but would nevertheless argue that you should not take my life away. I beg you to see through the ‘‘facts’’ and ‘‘reason’’ of what I say. I am innocent. Raffaele is innocent. Meredith and her family deserve the ‘‘truth’‘. Please put an end to this great and prolonged injustice for them.

in faith,

Amanda Marie Knox

 

Monday, May 18, 2015

“What It Feels Like To Be Wrongly Accused” Could This Be Your First Draft, Amanda Knox?

Posted by Chimera

Above: someone who unequivocally WAS wrongly accused - and still has seen no justice

What finally was published. You may decide if this was a scrapped first draft, with due caution!

I wanted to get it all out now, so I don’t have to keep explaining it a a hundred times, like I have been on CNN, ABC, NBC, Daybreak, or my memoir, or anyone else who would listen.

I have this dream in my head that when you accuse someone of a horrific act they didn’t do, they inevitably experience shock, disorientation, confusion.  They will likely get their name and photo in the paper, and forever be associated with a vile deed.  The emotional scars will remain, and their families and friends will abandon them or at least lose trust.  However, they did not suffer nearly as bad as you have, as some trauma, such as being slapped in the head, broke you down emotionally.

In all honesty, I know this is as strange to me as it is to everyone else.  Since most people don’t angrily deny false accusations, they just let the pressure squeeze their temples, and they let it become hard to concentrate.  But they are clearly acting suspiciously, if they don’t remember a fact correctly.  But even when they are locked up for that vicious crime, it has to be considered that they are still trying to help the police.

Truthfully, when you falsely accuse someone of murder, police strangely wonder why you did not bring this knowledge up before.  You try to keep a straight face, but there is tension in your right eyebrow, and below your right nostril and sometimes triggers you to twitch uncontrollably, making you self conscious about looking people in the face.  There’s a pinpoint knot that spasms between your heart making it hard to sit still, as your lies are crumbling around you.

But the truth is, this is still much easier than being outside a murder room with your hands over your ears, while your ‘‘friend’’ is being murdered.  After all, it could have been you.  The stress is causing you to vaguely remember things, about obscure texts, and to forget if your boyfriend is with you.  The stress causes you to smell, even after taking a shower, and to wake up first thing in the morning to buy bleach, as a sudden urge for housecleaning is therapeutic.

Honestly, it can be incredibly stressful to have to release this sudden burst of energy.  You yell, are anxious, and hit yourself in the head.  The police try to calm you down with food and drinks, but the visions and dreams are tormenting you, as you imagine that you have witnessed something horrific.  Yes, your friend let out a huge scream as she died, but you are not really lying when you tell the police who did it.  After all, your 2 hour police interview, or was is 14, 35 or 50? Or 150?... was tantamount to torture, and you should not have to be subjected to the stress of having to explain yourself a hundred times while the police investigate the murder of your friend.  You suffered too.

My best truth is that when people don’t trust you after making these false accusations, the anxiety arrives even at the most safe and casual of circumstances.  You’re hypersensitive to what people say, and how they say it.  They seem skeptical when you refer to things constantly as your best truth, or the truth you remember, or the truth you think is closest to the truth. There is an accumulation of primal anger and grief that can give no satisfactory expression when you start talking about visions you had, or how you vaguely remembered something happening. There is always this thought: how can you reconcile with significant parts of society whose trust you have abused?

I have nothing but lies to be afraid of.  But people take things out of context.  Saying someone had their f***ing throat slit is a way of explaining how a person died (even if I didn’t ‘‘officially’’ know it).  That person was my friend.  People can’t admit they were wrong when I make gurgling sounds and call blood ‘‘yucky’‘.  The can’t admit their mistakes when I say I only knew someone for a month, and want to get on with my life.  That person was my friend.  They find fault with everything when I say ‘‘shit happens’‘, and miss the memorial, because someone else made the decision for me.  That person was my friend.  They come up with speculation, and twist things around, and they are haters, when they complain about me wearing Beatles T-shirts in court.

In my head, the trauma felt by the victim of a wrongful accusation is foreign and unimaginable to the majority of people, that’s why I am here to help.  By that I mean write this story, not just make up (more) false accusations.

But, in the closest version of the truth, these are the questions that need answered: Why is the person I falsely accused angry with me?  Why is he not angry with the police for arresting him?  And why are the police now suspicious of me after making a false accusation?  Can they not see that I am a good person?  Why are people angry when I give interviews of get a million dollar book deal?  Can they not see I’ve suffered?  I mean, my friend (whose name I forget), was murdered, but it could just as easily have been me.  Why are people persecuting me? (loud sigh)

Honestly,  I am a victim here.  Why can you not see that?

Anyway, that’s all for now.  Just need to get on with my life.

Tuesday, May 05, 2015

A Shaky Castle Of Cards At Best: The Long-Term Fight For Legitimacy #2

Posted by Our Main Posters

RS and AK in New York a while back, the last time that they actually met


Gloom and doom have been dissipating for over a month now in Italy among those most invested in a just outcome, for the reasons given in this immediate-post-verdict post.

Note that the defense camps really want and need that legitimacy. They know the perverse judgment is not the end of the road. They have clamped down hard on what RS and AK can say.

In the Italian legal community the Fifth Chambers are getting some scathing commentary for their strange law and dismissiveness of the facts of the case which Cardiol in the post below this one once again underlined.

The Fifth Chambers’ sentencing report should be red meat, very tough for the hapless judges to write and a target from Day One and, under a new law in Italy which already overturned several Cassation verdicts, a very likely candidate for a legal suit.

The two book trials should slowly strip the emperors bare (remember those books are still very unread, even by many who read this site, and neither are in Italian yet), and could cost Knox more time inside and both of them fines and civil suits.

The psychologist SeekingUnderstanding has posted several times on how untreated troubled psychology rarely simply gets better with time. RS’s startling new crack at AK shows he has no inner calm, Knox’s delay in wedding plans and her incessant anger and vagueness maybe too.

Neither seem to have the big bucks they will need for their legal teams going forward, or the promise of successful careers. Sollecito still hasnt worked a day in his life and his preferred software area never sees successful entrants at his age. Knox’s only known area of interest - paid writing - is a fast-shrinking field.

Several tough books are already in the works. And the media loves conspiracy theories and hoaxes, and as all the real conspiracies and hoaxes have been on the defenses’ side, trends will also be against RS and AK there.

The only safe bets are that there will be various surprise happenings in the next six months - and that we’d rather be in our camp than in theirs.

Thursday, April 02, 2015

The Psychology Of The Human Race Puts Us On A Rising Curve Toward True Justice For All

Posted by SeekingUnderstanding

Above and below: more and more people worldwide are on the march to make justice for victims work

1. The “Just-World” Is Built

When we were children, we listened to fairy tales. Most cultures have a library of myths.

They frequently had ‘happy ever after’ endings, where everything worked out well, after many scares, struggles and deep sorrows. Rarely did the ‘bad people’ win, in the very end, although there were often sacrifices along the way required by those who were true to themselves, and cared for others and the world. The ruthless, selfish, greedy people often appeared in disguise - their ugly and scheming natures only revealed by chance at The End.

We often asked our fathers to read us these stories, before we were tucked up safely in bed. Usually we went to sleep reassured. This is because such tales reinforce a concept known as ‘the just-world’. In this just world, good thoughts and deeds are rewarded, eventually, and the bad and cruel actions will reap the punishment they deserve, even if patience is required until this comes about.

Our belief in this concept helps us, as we begin to go out in the world and face its stresses and dangers. It gives us hope and courage, in our tiny childhood bodies.

Our parents are our caretakers, there to guide us and protect us from harm. Good parents, who are teachers too, show us right from wrong, good from bad. We grow, and begin to form a sense of Self, a core self that finds meaning and values, experiences beauty and ugliness, joy and pain.

At least one of our caretakers will empathize with us, and give us what is known as validation. Gradually, we learn to be self-reliant and do this for ourselves, although we will always still turn towards the caretaker for this reassurance at certain times.

2. When Our Just-World is Broken

And then, suddenly, one day, something else happens. (Hopefully, this day doesn’t come when we are so very young - if it does, it is frequently disastrous).

Our belief in the Just World is fractured. It cracks, and comes crumbling down around us, terrifying us as it does. Life goes into slow motion, and we remember the colours, shapes, smells, words, for the rest of our lives. Someone who has done wrong is praised and rewarded, and the little person who is ‘me’, who was being as good as we knew how to be, is scolded, teased, taunted, hurt (perhaps physically), neglected, ignored, humiliated, punished. We suffer when we do not deserve to, sometimes when we least deserve to.

Most of all, our ‘caretaker’, whose function it is to protect us, now reprimands us, withdraws their love or approval and, worst of all, refuses to believe us. We are telling it as it is, telling the truth as we have been taught to do, and the very person we have entrusted with truth, rejects us, and believes the one who is lying. We feel despair,and we feel isolated. We panic inside, and experience fear as we have not known it.

Our adrenalin and other endocrine reactions are set in motion. Our heart thumps. We don’t know what to do, we feel numb, confused, it is hard to concentrate. We are unlikely to be able to say, at that point, - but what we are feeling is betrayal. All our inner security has temporarily dissolved.

Not only has the person insulted and harmed us with their wrong-doing, but they compounded this by sanctimoniously pretending that they were ‘put upon’, a victim no less, while simultaneously the true victim is blamed and derogated. It is outrageous, and moreover it is disempowering (at first).

It is our first experience of injustice.

3. The Experience of Acute Distress

If our psyche is healthy, we will recover, both physically and emotionally within a short period. Human beings have innate coping mechanisms, and we learn gradually to activate these. Different personalities develop different ways.

But the period of stress and distress does need to be of a short duration. This is important. If it is not, we now know that very real damage occurs. This is not something vague, but is actual, biological, involving the Hippocampus and other specific areas in the brain.

When we talk about ‘healing’, this is not just a fancy word for getting into a better mood : real healing and correction need to occur in the cell tissues. Stress really does damage your health, and if we need to take time out to recover from it, - this is a real need. The greater and more prolonged the distress, the longer the time needed to rebuild, to adapt and adjust. Music, and being in nature, often have an important role to play here. People find their own ways, in their own time.

The other thing of prime importance is contact and talking, sharing, with others to whom we feel bonded. It may seem like saying the obvious - but it has been shown that victims of trauma heal very much more quickly when their contact with their loved ones in the aftermath had been immediate.

What is needed is the opposite of isolation, which would simply increase the undermining of the sense of self and our own identity, which has been hurt, or sometimes splintered.

People are isolated in cases of torture - the perpetrators of it know this isolating alone is punishing, fragmenting, weakening and eroding to the self.

We need the validation of our true friends. Perhaps this is the origin of the saying, ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’.

To recap slightly : our first experience of having our illusion of a totally Just World challenged probably first occurs as we are growing up, perhaps at school or similarly.

I will not, here, address the very serious cases where child abuse happens in the home, where the damage may never be repairable (although a certain amount can be done, miraculously, with professional and skilled help). Neither is this the place to describe terrible trauma caused by murder and terrorism. Extreme experience of injustice, especially continuous, leads to severe trauma, which at the extreme end leads to PTSD.

Needless to say, those who survive need the utmost sensitivity and skill to help them deal with the sheer inhumanity of their situations.

4. The Caretaker in the Wider World

As we go out into the world, ‘the family’ and with it, the head of the family or the main caretaker extends onto a more macro scale. The head of an institution becomes the caretaker. The headmaster or headmistress has a duty of care and protection : they are ‘in loco parentis’.

And so on upwards - the head of a large company where we may work has to duty of care that his employees are kept safe; we have local heads of government, police commissioners etc., whose responsibility includes the safety and protection of the citizens - this is achieved through law and order. And so we finally go to the top, and have the governments of countries, and their judiciary and courts, and the Head of State.

Governments carry the ‘caretaker’ role for the people, the citizens. They are entrusted with our ultimate safety, security and defence - against violence, against terror, unreason, and the break-down of law and order into chaos and tyranny. We entrust them to save us from barbarism.

It is because they have this extension of the caretaker role (a leader will sometimes be called ‘The Father of the Nation’), that when something goes badly wrong, we can feel betrayed. Our own personal memories of betrayal, which may exist in layers of many chapters, can suddenly be triggered. It matters not that physically, personally, we may not be anything like in proximity or involved in what has just happened.

A feeling of insecurity, of being totally let down, indeed of being betrayed, is experienced in the collective, the caretaker of which is the top of government and judiciary.
The shockwaves in the collective trigger our personal memories of our own past trauma. Just as happens when someone we know is bereaved, and we then suddenly recall our own bereavements, as clear as day. Our own memories are re-experienced within the present, integrated into the collective event.

When a member of the Royal Family (in Britain) for whom there is much affection, dies, one can see an outpouring of collective sentiment. Some may disparage it (as in, ‘well, how could they possibly have known her!’ etc), but the phenonomen of collective sentiment is very real, and contains more than the sum of its parts. As all collective moods, it will operate as a wave - a wave that may sweep reason aside.

5. Injustice Is So Like Bereavement

Injustice affects us as bereavement does. When we are bereaved, and perhaps especially when we lose a parent (our original ‘caretaker’), we are affected physiologically as well as emotionally.

Our fear responses are heightened, (sometimes called heightened arousal), our heart rate changes, our concentration and memory are affected, as too our ability to regulate our emotions (be overwhelmed by them); our perception itself is affected, including our perception of who we are ourselves, our very core identity.

It is very common to feel we have lost a part of ourself with the loss of the one we loved, or, importantly, who loved us. Their love for us was part of what made us feel valid. How many feel, when bereaved, lost themselves, - rudderless, as it were? We have to re-learn, and validate ourselves.

Why, you may wonder, are we discussing bereavement here? Because the responses that we go through (and it happens involuntarily) are the same as when experiencing the distress of injustice, or injustice trauma where it is extreme.

The same shattering of world-view is involved, and the same loss of security, which affects us fundamentally.

We need ‘safe-holding’ - first our parents provide this, then gradually other people and other structures out in society provide this keeping of us safe and secure. Being able to dependably rely on the administrators of just law to do exactly that is a very important part of our security. We trust them. We trust our government to use their powers judiciously, to look after our best interests, or at least to try.

If suddenly justice itself appears from every logical perspective to be in fact injustice, it is a great threat to our psychological security, for reasons I’ve tried to explain.

If the collective has been subject to such stress, then the process of repair or healing is required to happen in the collective, exactly as it is when the injustice stress or trauma has occurred on a personal level. It is just as essential. As one of our commentators said, ‘Silence is not an option’.

But fortunately, humanity is resourceful. We can all think of ways and times when people of every diversity have come together in adversity, and pulled together, in generosity, kindness and strength. There is the dual instinct in most people (who are not dysfunctional, damaged or disturbed) which is for both justice and compassion - civilized, just action - .. and when we recover from the adrenalin state, where one feels temporarily stunned in disbelief, we slowly regain our ability to creatively engage in the present.

6. How The Healing Process Works

Many people come and seek out counselling when they are recovering from extended periods of stress and distress, caused by a wide variety of reasons, and within a wide spectrum of severity. There are a number of effective techniques to aid the self-therapy.

These include understanding one’s own fear responses and calming these; recognizing personal triggers, and having a method to deal with flashbacks when they occur; working on acceptance, and being ‘grounded’ or anchored; and learning to create a feeling of safety and security for yourself in the present, and recalling the stressful time but placing it carefully in the past.

7. Narrative Therapy For RS And AK

Sollecito admitted to lies, Knox served three years for lies, and both are still on trial in Florence for many more. Even their best friends know that.

In order to make progress in recovery, with counselling, some sort of ‘narrative therapy’ is needed, where what has been so distressing can be processed and talked about from the perspective of the present, looking back and making sense -  but not talking as if one is still there in the experience.

To be able to arrive at this narrative is an important healing step. But if instead, the story is made of fragmented flashbacks, and the talk slips back into the present tense, as if the person is there again at the scene…really this is not good news. (cf AK was doing this in one of her last interviews last year - the one where she talked about ‘the corpse’).

There is avoidance, where the person can’t bear to think about the stress, and there are intense flashbacks, re-lived, - which can re-traumatise.

The narrative that we seek, and that helps bring calm and the ability to move forward, is neither of these. But to reach the good narrative the person will have to go through the detail of the traumatic event, and face the pain it causes them. They will have to be truthful. The therapist helps them do this incrementally, within a very safe environment. It does work, but it takes time - the greater the trauma, the greater the time.

This knowledge is useful to anyone recovering from a major stressful life event, but the reason I mention it here is in thinking about our two ex-defendants. Stepping aside for the moment from the flip-flopping judgement delivered, - what concerns me is whether and how healing is possible - for everyone.

There are so very many deeply disturbing aspects to this dreadfully drawn-out case, - most have been noted. But one that disturbs me most is that the ex-defendants have wound themselves up to delivering false narratives to the media circuses - to the point where they can’t now recant them without getting their respective knickers in a complete twist, knots that can’t be unravelled, nor make any sense.

As it is, it seems we have two ghosts who held down Meredith, where Guede was the third man.

My serious point here being that, for their own sakes if no-one else’s, the ex-defendants will need to tell a truthful narrative, in order to find any kind of reasonable and balanced functioning in their lives.

Quite simply, healing will not be possible unless they arrive at telling a truthful narrative in the way I touched on above - even if this is in confidentiality, to a therapist, - it will need to be done. It cannot be done in fiction.

If they do not go through the necessary steps in the process as outlined - instability, gross insecurity, and states of fear and anxiety will persist, and the trauma can and will always re-emerge unpredictably, and haunt and shadow their lives with flashbacks.

This process is well-known, and well-documented.

This site is primarily to support the Kercher family, who are the genuine, innocent victims of the most appalling trauma - one that has been selfishly drawn out by ruthless external forces, thus putting their own recovery in jeopardy, and causing great suffering.

They should always have been put first, but now, at this point in time, it is more vital than ever.

They will need, as all victims in recovery, to be able to make their ‘good narrative’. But they cannot fully do so without the truth - even if it has to remain just a sketch of the truth. I wish with all my heart they can find the whole narrative that they need - I do not know how at this point, with so much obfuscation abounding.

But I do not give up hope : healing can always arrive, for those with good will, and good hearts…so however long it takes, I have faith that it can, and it will.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Questons For Knox: Adding A Dozen More To The Several Hundred Knox So Far Avoided

Posted by Chimera

Knox during a pause in questioning at trial; her answers destroyed many Italians’ trust

1. State Of Play On The Questions Front

Sollecito and his father Francesco actually take questions without 99% of them being agreed-on in advance. 

They evade a lot and lose a little but they also gain some points, unlike a seemingly terrified Knox and a seemingly terrified PR who now seem stuck in tongue-tied and consistently-losing modes.

In Italy last night on the much-watched crime show Porta a Porta Francesco Sollecito had to go along with the official reconstruction of the prolonged pack attack on Meredith which rules out any lone wolf though he again maintained that Raffaele was not there.

Not by any means does TJMK give Sollecito a pass. He WAS there at the attack, the evidence is very strong. And we do have many dozens of pending questions waiting for him to respond.

But the truly evasive one is Amanda Knox. Previously helped by the fawning arm of the American press.

2. Pending Questions We Have Already Asked

These are ordered chronologically with the first questions, by Kermit in mid trial in 2009,  at the bottom of the list.

Click here for: Questions For Knox: Ted Simon Gone? With Legal And Financial Woes Will The Other Paid Help Stay

Click here for: Questions For Knox: Why Does Book Smear Others On Drug Use, Mischaracterize Your Own?

Click here for: Questions For Knox and Sollecito: Why Claim Rudy Guede Did It Alone When So Much Proof Against?

Click here for: Questions For Knox: How Do You Explain That Numerous Psychologists Now Observe You Skeptically?

Click here for: Questions For Knox: Ten Hard Questions That Knox Should Be Asked Monday On ITV’s Daybreak

Click here for: Questions For Knox: Why So Many False Claims In Accounts Of Your Visit To The House?

Click here for: Questions For Knox: Why The Huge Lie About Your ZERO Academic Intentions In Europe?

Click here for: Questions For Knox: Do You Think “False Memories Kassin” Framing Italians Yet Again Will Help?

Click here for: Questions For Knox: Did You Undergo An Illegal Interrogation By Mignini Or Did You Try To Frame Him?

Click here for: Questions For Knox: Diane Sawyer, How To Push Back Against The False Claims And Emotion

Click here for: Questions For Sollecito And Knox and Enablers: Several Hundred On The Hard Evidence

Click here for: Questions For Knox: The Questions That Drew Griffin On CNN Tonight SHOULD Have Asked

Click here for: Questions For AK And RS From Barbie Nadeau As Knox Slander Trial Starts

Click here for: Questions For Knox: (Powerpoints #11) 150 Hard Questions That You Incessantly Avoid

3. My Own Dozen Questions More

I have mentioned before my belief that Meredith Kercher’s attack and possibly death was premeditated, at least on the part of Amanda Knox.  Raffaele Sollecito, and Rudy Guede, while accomplices, and also liable, did not plan this out.

Below is my own list of a dozen more hard questions Knox should be asked. This post focuses on questions that point towards forethought and premeditation.  And no, crying, having a fit, and refusing to answer just won’t do it.  An open challenge to not answer in a Hellmann-court-type wail.

1. Keeping the ‘‘See you later’’ Text to Patrick

You kept the message that you sent to Lumumba, which you wrote in Italian.  The literal translation from English implies that you actually intend to meet, rather than the English one that means a parting of ways.  As a language student, this common expression was likely one of the first things you learned, if you didn’t know already.

At your voluntary questioning, of November 5th/6th, you give that message to the police, and claim it as proof that you left Raffaele’s apartment to meet him.  The police didn’t force this knowledge from you, rather you volunteered it after Raffaele withdrew your alibi.  Patrick was falsely arrested, due entirely to your statements, and that message.

I considered, and rejected the idea that you might have kept the message in case Patrick might have wondered why you didn’t show.  If that were the case, you would have kept his message not to come in, and not your response.

Here is the 2009 trial video, the relevant part starts at about the 7:30 mark.  At the 10:30 mark, she talks about the message. At 12:15, she says she doesn’t know how to delete sent messages.

Question for Knox: Why did you keep Patrick’s message, if not to use later as a backup plan?

2. The Lack of Videotaping for the ‘‘Interrogation’‘

You and your supporters in the U.S. frequently complain that your November 5th/6th ‘‘interrogation’’ was never recorded.  You claim that if there was such a record, it would corroborate your claims, and prove you were beaten/smacked around/tortured.  A video would go both ways: it could either prove police brutality and misconduct, or it could definitively prove a suspect or witness was lying.

Until that night, you claim nearly 50 hours of interrogation (see December 2013 email to Judge Nencini), yet none of it was recorded.  Odd, if you were the suspect all along.  Witness summaries routinely are not, but suspect interrogations almost always are, if only to cover the police officer’(s) butt(s).

That night, when you said you witnessed a crime you did not report (Patrick attacking Meredith), your legal status changed from a witness to a possible suspect.  You were given a miranda warning, but still continued to talk.

At this point with your new status, the police would have wanted to videotape or audio record any questionings.  And if they had, any claims of the ‘‘police beat me’’ would have been very easy to refute.  So, by staying away from the camera, it actually creates at least a bit of ambiguity, and gives some wiggle room, should you decide to make complaints later.  It turns an open-and-shut matter into your-word-against-theirs where you lose.

Question for Knox: Did the police ever ask to videotape any of your ‘‘questionings’‘?  And if so, why did you refuse?

3. Transporting Raffaele’s Knife to Your Apartment

You and Raffaele were charged in addition to murder and sexual assault, with transport of a weapon, namely, a knife to your apartment and back.  Despite all the denials of your lawyers, it had Meredith’s DNA on the blade, and your DNA on the hilt (the infamous ‘‘double DNA knife’‘).  Most spontaneous violent crimes involve objects in the immediate area, such as the room, whereas this knife was taken from another location and brought to the crime scene.  Frankly, it reeks of pre-planning.

I considered, and rejected the argument of needing protection.  Knox never claimed she felt unsafe walking around Perugia, heck she sleeps with random people there.  If she did feel afraid at times, many women just clench keys in their fists, for something like that.

Even more disturbing, (as you admit you are a CSI fan) the knife was brought back to Raffaele’s apartment, cleaned with bleach, and put back.  Had the bleach actually destroyed all the DNA—it tends to miss DNA in cracks and grooves—it would have implicated Raffaele only, being his knife, and would not implicate you.  Rather than throw it away, like a ‘‘smart’’ killer would do, it is put back, where it is fairly easy to be found.

Question for Knox: Why did you bring the knife from Raffaele’s apartment, if not to use against someone?

Question for Knox: Why was the knife returned to Raffaele’s kitchen?  Were you hoping (as a fallback), that it might lead to him alone?

4. The Staged Break-In

You finally admitted, after long denying, that you staged an April Fool’s Day prank on April 1st, 2007, by simulating a burglary against a housemate.  You found it funny, while others found it disturbing.  However, in order to do such a prank, you needed to think in advance about how you wanted things to look. In short, this had to be planned out.

Well, the November 1st ‘‘break-in’’ at your apartment when Meredith was killed, was ruled by the courts to be a staged burglary.  There are just too many holes in your story, and in the crime scene, to believe it was legitimate.

But what is not clear, is whether the killers staged the burglary as a panicked response to Meredith’s death, or whether some of the details were worked out ahead of time.  And you had, as a prank, done this before.

I considered, and rejected the claim that it was a real burglary.  However, Judges Micheli, Massei, Nencini and the Court of Cassation disagree, and they can summarize it better.

Question for Knox: Did you think of simulating a break in at your home BEFORE or AFTER Meredith was murdered?

5. Rudy Guede’s Involvement

FoAK has long smeared Guede as a drifter, drug dealer, orphan, burglar, and many other things.  There was one bit of truth there: Guede had broken into at least one place, prior to Meredith’s death, although he had not been charged at the time.  He recently got his jail time extended though, as a result of this.

Interestingly, while you claim to not know Guede, your book seems to include a lot of detail about him.  You knew he was interested you.  You say he had done a break in, and you had staged a break in.  You allege his was done in Perugia, while your prank was far away, in Seattle, where no police were involved.  And let’s be frank: men say dumb things to impress women.  What an interesting person to bring along.

Question for Knox: Did you know about Guede’s prior break in BEFORE or AFTER Meredith was murdered?

6. Turning Off the Cellphones (you and Raffaele)

It is now common knowledge that most cellphones contain GPS that can track the movement of a user.  Police know this, and can often track suspects’ movements this way.  Smart people looking to avoid police attention have figured this out, and can turn their cell phones off (or leave them at home), to make their movements more ‘‘anonymous’‘.

Even smarter police have now figured out that people know, and can now find out if turning off phones is routine, or just a one time thing.  Jodi Arias was caught out this way.  Thomasdinh (Dinh) Bowman was caught out this way. See this.

You and Raffaele had never turned off your cellphones, but chose to (and together) the evening before Meredith was killed.

You gave multiple excuses. (1) Sollecito says in his book it was so you could fool around undisturbed.  (2) You say in your book it was so you wouldn’t receive a message from Patrick if he changed his mind and wanted you to work.  (3) You said in your December 2007 questioning with Mignini that it was done to preserve the charge in your phone.  (4) At trial, your lawyers disputed that the phones were shut off?

Question for Knox: Why did you and Raffele turn off your phones the night Meredith died, if not to cover your movements?

7. Ditching Meredith’s Phones

Meredith’s phones, both her English and Italian phones, were found well away from the home.  While it is normal to have a cell phone, very few people have more than one, and other than a friend, family member, or roommate, who would know this?  Meredith’s attackers took them both, and rather try to sell them or use them, dumped them.

Police have speculated that this was done to divert attention, and to give out false leads.  However, this amount of thought in a ‘‘hurried and rushed’’ crime seems very much out of place.  The unexpected consequence is that it helped narrow the focus.

I considered, and rejected the idea that they were part of an actual robbery.  A killer who seems to know so much about evidence, and about cell phone evidence, would take them, knowing the GPS would help track his movements.  Really, what smart killer would take a mobile ‘‘ankle bracelet’’ with him?

Question for Knox: Why did you take Meredith’s phones, if not to throw off the police investigation?

8. Keeping Frederico Martini’s Number in Your Phone

It is now well known, even if not reported at the time, that Frederico Martini (a.k.a. the ‘‘Cristiano’’ in your book), was a drug dealer you met on the train to Perugia.  You ditched your sister, Deanna, to be with him.  And since then, he had been supplying you with free drugs in return for sex.

It is also well known that you gave Frederico’s number to police, probably trying to divert attention from yourself once again, and that he ended up serving time for drug dealing.

You have enough sense to turn your cell phone off prior to phones (see sections 1, 6, and 7), so you clearly knew that phones can provide serious evidence against you.  If you truly were worried about the police searching your phone, you could have deleted his number, changed a digit or 2, changed the name, or otherwise hidden that information.

The police weren’t concerned with drugs, only with catching a killer. 

Question for Knox: Why did you keep Freddy’s number, and then give it to police, other than just another diversion tactic?

9. The Lamp From Your Room on Meredith’s Floor

The lamp from your room, the only source of light in your room, was found on the floor in Meredith’s room.  This would seem odd, as Meredith had two lamps of her own, and your room would be left dark.  Police have speculated that the lamp was used during the clean-up, and then forgotten.

This demonstrates a lot of control, as rather than grabbing an available lamp from Meredith’s room (if it were needed for cleanup), the killers would have moved outside the bedroom, grabbed a lamp from another room and brought it back.

It further demonstrates control, as there was no bloody footprints into your room.  Therefore, the killer must have cleaned his or her feet, then gone into your room to grab the lamp.  And that lamp was found wiped off prints, so whoever took it had the foresight to make sure their own weren’t on it, but had Meredith’s lamp been used, finding it wiped clean would have been a dead give away.

All of this smacks of planning, and had the lamp not been forgotten in the locked room, we would never have known any of this.

Question for Knox: Why was your lamp found on Meredith’s floor, if not to clean or search for evidence?

10. Gloves Used for Cleanup?

The police went through the house.  Although they did not test everything, very few fingerprints were found at all in the house, and only one belonging to Knox, on a glass.  Of course, it raises the question of why any random burglar or killer would do that, and points to someone who is there regularly—a resident.

Such an undertaking would have taken a long time, again, pointing to a resident of the building.  And while a sock or a cloth may be used a few times, it seems extremely impractical to use for any length of time.  That leads another obvious suggestion: gloves.

However, Perugia was still warm.  Amanda, (in that God-awful interview with Simon Hattenstone), said that she could sunbathe in October.  Even if she had them in her luggage, they would probably take time to find.  She was not known for wearing gloves as a fashion accessory.

Given her living habits, it is extremely unlikely she had her own cleaning gloves, and Laura and Filomena never reported such things missing.  Nor did anyone else.  So, where would they come from?

Question for Knox: Did you purchase (or steal) gloves prior to Meredith’s death?

11. Clothes and Supplies

You were seen in Quintavalle’s shop first thing in the morning on November 2nd, even if your lawyers contest it.  He claims you were looking in the cleaning section, but then left.  Strange, as you are not much of a cleaner, however he has no reason to lie.  You also claim that you were not ‘‘missing’’ any clothes, even though Filomena mentions a sweater you were wearing but has not been recovered.

It is also known that you have made many cash withdrawls in the month of October, with seemingly little to spend on.  Police and the media have speculated drugs, but with absolutely no paper trail, there is no way to know for sure how much was spent on what.

Question for Knox: Did you purchase any cleaning supplies, or extra clothes, either before or after Meredith’s murder?

12. Concerning The Gubbio Trip

You have travelled to many places, sure, but hadn’t really gone anywhere after settling in Perugia.  Yes, you had given serious thought to ditching the town, even buying a ticket to China.  Since meeting Raffaele, you two had kept in a relatively small area.  Therefore, the trip planned to Gubbio, for the day after Meredith was killed, seems somewhat out of place.

I may very well be wrong, but was this the first road trip you had taken with him?  You hadn’t packed anything, and you left your house (after the shower) without taking anything.  You apparently also didn’t notice Filomena’s broken window in front of you.

Question for Knox: Was the Gubbio trip for real, or was this a staged cover?

Monday, March 09, 2015

The Meredith Case Wiki Now Has The Key Sollecito Statement 6 Nov 2007 In Full

Posted by Our Main Posters

Perugia’s central police station where Sollecito made the statement posted here


The ever-expanding Wiki can of course be found here.

A post follows soon with guidance to the numerous new documents it contains. This was an extremely well documented case with discussions carefully recorded and decisions explained every step of the way.

We have frequently noted for example that RS and AK were provided with an extraordinary total of SIX opportunities in 2007 and 2008 to head off a trial and to be released.

Each opportunity is very well documented (Matteini hearings, Ricciarelli hearings, Mignini hearings, Supreme Court rulings, and the two Micheli rulings) and the transcripts and reports make very clear why RS and AK failed each time.

Not one of those transcripts or rulings has been “explained” or rebutted by the RS and AK apologists. It is very clear now that their falsifying efforts are being left way back there in the dust.

Document after document after document proving the case is going live in English for which they have been able to create no response.  For example, the “brutal” Knox “interrogation” on 6 November is absolutely vital to their body of claims.

But document after document has shown that to be simply a huge hoax.  Dumb silence is the only response.

This new translation of Sollecito’s statement of 6 November 2007 in the central police station, complete for the first time, has just gone live on the Wiki here. As always, we sure appreciate the translation help.

Note: Many of the claims here were proved wrong by phone and computer records and those dropping Knox in the soup contradict claims by Knox.

Sollecito never agreed to testify or be cross-examined on this or many other statements . Smart move, from his point of view. At the same time from 20007 to 2016 Sollecito NEVER testified that Knox was simply at his home all of the 5 November 2007 night. 

Perugia Police Headquarters
Flying Squad
General Affairs Area.

SUBJECT: Witness statement of person informed of the facts given by SOLLECITO Raffaele, already identified.

On November 5th 2007 at 22:40 in the offices of the Flying Squad of the Perugia Police Headquarters. Before the undersigned of the Criminal Investigation Dept. Deputy Commissioner MONICA NAPOLEONI, Chief Inspector Antonio FACCHINI Vice Superintendent of Police Daniele MOSCATELLI, Assistant Chief Ettore FUOCO is present the above-mentioned who, to supplement the declarations made [November] in these Offices, in regards to the facts being investigated, declares as follows: [*A.D.R. = Question Answer = QA]

QA I have known Amanda for about two weeks. From the night that I met her she started sleeping at my house. On November 1st, I woke up at around 11, I had breakfast with Amanda then she went out and I went back to bed. Then around 13:00-14:00 I met her at her house again. Meredith was there too. Amanda and I had lunch while Meredith did not have lunch with us.

QA Around 16:00 Meredith left in a hurry without saying where she was going. Amanda and I stayed home until about 17:30-18:00.

QA We left the house, we went into town, but I don’t remember what we did.
QA We stayed there from 18:00 until 20:30/21:00. At 21:00 I went home alone because Amanda told me that she was going to go to the pub Le Chic because she wanted to meet some friends.

QA At this point we said goodbye and I headed home while she headed towards the center.

QA I went home alone, sat at the computer and rolled myself a spliff. Surely I had dinner but I don’t remember what I ate. Around 23:00 my father called at my home number 075.9660789. During that time I remember Amanda had not come back yet.

QA I browsed at my computer for another two hours after my father’s phone call and only stopped when Amanda came back presumably around 1:00.

QA I don’t remember how she was dressed and if she was dressed the same way as when we said goodbye before dinner.

QA I don’t remember if we had sex that night.

QA The following morning around 10:00 we woke up, she told me she wanted to go home and take a shower and change clothes.

QA In fact at around 10:30 she went out and I went back to sleep. When she went out that morning to go to her house, Amanda also took an empty bag telling me she needed it for dirty clothes.

QA At around 11:30 she came back home and I remember she had changed clothes; she had her usual bag with her.

QA I don’t know the contents of her bag.

QA I remember we immediately went to the kitchen, we sat down and talked for a while, perhaps we had breakfast. In that circumstance Amanda told me that when she got to her house she found the entrance door wide open and some traces of blood in the small bathroom and she asked me if it sounded strange. I answered that it did and I also advised her to call her housemates. She said she had called Filomena but that Meredith was not answering.

QA At around 12:00 we left the house; passing through Corso Garibaldi we arrived in Piazza Grimana, then we went through the Sant’ Antonio parking lot and reached Amanda’s house. To walk there it took us about 10 minutes.

QA As soon as we got there she opened the door with her keys, I went in and I noticed that Filomena’s door was wide open with some glass on the floor and her room was in a complete mess. The door to Amanda’s room was open and I noticed that it was tidy. Then I went towards Meredith’s door and saw that it was locked. Before this I looked to see if it was true what Amanda had told me about the blood in the bathroom and I noticed drops of blood in the sink, while on the mat there was something strange - a mixture of blood and water, while the rest of the bathroom was clean.

QA I went to the kitchen and saw that everything was in order, then went around the rest of the house, I went to Laura’s room and noticed it was tidy. In that moment Amanda went inside the big bathroom, next to the kitchen and came out frightened and hugging me tight telling me that earlier, when she took the shower, she had seen feces inside the toilet, while now the toilet was clean. QA I just took a rapid glance at the bathroom trusting what Amanda had told me.

QA At that point I was asking myself what could have happened and I went out to find Meredith’s window to see if I could climb to it. I went outside with Amanda and she tried to climb to it, I immediately stopped her telling her to not do it because it was dangerous. I then told Amanda that the best solution was to break down the door, I tried to kick it and shoulder it open but I didn’t manage to open it. Then I called my sister on her cellphone and asked her what I should do since she is a Carabinieri lieutenant. My sister told me to call the Carabinieri (112, the Italian emergency number), which I did, but in the meantime the Postal Police showed up.

QA In my previous statement I told a load of rubbish because Amanda had convinced me of her version of the facts and I didn’t think about the inconsistencies. I heard the first statements that she made to the Postal Police who intervened at the place.

QA She always carried a big bag that she also had the night of November 1st.

The investigating officials acknowledge that the deposition ends at 3:30 (AM) of November 6th 2007.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Journalist Andrea Vogt Highlights Non-Damning Nature Of Rome Embassy Cables About Knox

Posted by Peter Quennell

Ambassador to Italy David Thorne with Secretary of State John Kerry

1. US Freedom Of Official Information And Politics

Since 1967 the US Federal Government has had to provide certain official information to requesting citizens and organizations.

Most of those are watchdog groups and reporters. The relevant rules are quite elaborate, and can be read here and here.

About half of all information requested is handed over fully, about 3/8 is handed over with excisions and withholdings, and about 1/8 is not handed over at all, with summary reasons for the refusal. This can then be appealed or alternately brought to the attention of someone in Congress.

If a powerful congressman or committee staffer picks up the ball then the information can flow quite magically.

If the information can embarrass the presidential administration the other party can gleefully extract the information, if necessary with the issuing of a subpoena. The news media will usually pick this up and run with it, especially if a Congressional committee decides to ask questions or hold hearings.

We reckon that our readership and the case-watchers in general extend right across the political spectrum from left to right. No easy trick and we have always been quite pleased with this. It is usually impossible to tell what the political position of any poster or emailer is.

Same with the US media. Fox News cable news is generally thought to be right-wing and MSNBC left-wing and CNN tries to make it in the middle. But all three have had left-wingers and right-wingers on their shows supporting either Italy and justice or the anti-justice anti-Italy misinformation Knox campaign.

In other words support by Americans for Italian justice or for giving Knox a pass has had nothing to do with party lines. But that could change some.

Right now the presidential administration is on its back foot, as the other party controls both the houses of Congress. The Secretary of State and the Ambassador in Rome both work for the administration, and can be called to account by that Congress.

Knox happens to live in a city and state which largely goes along with the presidential party and administration. Senator Patty Murray and Senator Maria Cantwell are in the presidential party as is Mayor Ed Murray of Seattle.

Senator Cantwell is STILL the only influential politician who has taken a public stance anti-Italy; nobody from the opposite party ever has.

In 2009 Cantwell was sharply rebuffed and her facts corrected by the State Department and CNN’s legal analyst and even by some pro-justice Seattle voters..

In October 2013 Cantwell flashed in and out of a bizarre misinformation panel perhaps embarrassed to be associated with it.

Bottom line? The presidential administration and party does not seem in a strong position to refuse to hand over any documents, or without very strong reason to take a pro-Knox anti-Italy position.

We are not guaranteeing that this case will become a political football. But it could. If it does, the Knox gang will have only weak political allies (if any) and what the Rome Embassy reported to the State Department 2007-2015 is really going to matter.

How does all this relate to what Andrea Vogt has recently encountered?

2. Andrea Vogt And The Cables From The Rome Embassy

Andrea Vogt in effect holds a giant lever. She has long pursued her right as an American journalist to surface what the consular officers in the Rome Embassy who watchdogged the 2009 trial and 2011 and 2013 appeals and Knox’s stint in prison had been reporting back to the State Department in Washington.

Releases of copies of cables in 2010 showed “no cause for concern” over Knox’s treatment and copies of cables in 2011 showed likewise.

There was zero official paper trail helpful to a Knox fight against extradition. That was despite a very nasty effort by Knox forces to lean on the Embassy and the State Department by complaining directly to President Obama.

Now Andrea Vogt is reporting on the Freelance Desk in “Update Feb 13 2015” on her experience with a new batch of cables.

Oddities to our eyes are that (1) in this batch, some requested cables were not released; and (2) a cable in October 2011 at the end of the Hellmann appeal wrongly declared “case closed”.

Passages of special interest have been highlighted here by us.

Many may view the cables as just routine bureaucracy, which in large part they are, but I believe they are important documents to add to the public record for two reasons.

First, they show insight into how American citizens in trouble abroad are supported (or not, depending on your viewpoint) by their government.

Second, they contribute transparently to the established written government record, clarifying diplomatic aspects of the case that until now have remained hidden while the saga played out solely in Italian courtrooms and the media.

The results of this second batch of FOIA requests were of particular importance due to the grave accusations being launched against the Italian police and members of its judiciary by members of Knox’s family, supporters and public relations team during the period of her incarceration.

The question at hand: was Amanda Knox abused, mistreated or robbed of a fair trail in Italy? How closely was the state department monitoring the case and what did embassy officials do, or not do, as it evolved?

The answer, first revealed in this first batch of embassy cables released to me in 2012 and dating back from 2007-2009, is that embassy and state department personnel actively monitored the case and provided aid from the very first days after her arrest. Other state and federal documents that I published back in 2010 ... show how Washington State’s congressional delegation, namely Sen. Maria Cantwell, was also involved.

This second batch of FOIA-requested embassy cables was released to me in late 2014 in response to another more extensive FOIA request made in 2012 (a two-year lag time is not unusual for broad requests)...

In brief, these new cables shows that the trend of close state department monitoring of the case was constant, with consular involvement up until the day (Oct 11, 2011) that the U.S. Ambassador Thorne in Rome sent a cable to the secretary of state in Washington D.C., officially declaring the matter “case closed.”

The communications are noteworthy because they bust a number of media myths about Amanda Knox’s release and immediate departure from Italy after her release in 2011, namely that the U.S. embassy did not receive her in the hours immediately post release for consular services, as she was traveling on a valid U.S. passport.

The other interesting point is that though the case was far from over in Italy,  once Amanda Knox was off Italian soil, it no longer considered the case to be of interest. “With the verdict of Oct. 3 overturning Amanda Knox’s prior conviction, her immediate release from prison and her subsequent departure from Italy today, Post considers this case closed. THORNE.”

For American citizens abroad, it is a welcome reminder that the embassy works on citizens’ behalf, as are the four documents released with excisions that show Knox was regularly visited by consular officials every six weeks and brought reading materials.

It is worth noting that the only persons to publicly report to have regularly visited Knox in prison to bring her reading materials were those associated with the Fondazione Italia USA, namely Italian parliamentarian Rocco Girlanda and Corrado Maria Daclon, the two men also present with her in the car that drove Knox out of prison the night she was acquitted.

Coincidence or are these the consular visits the cables refer to?

As soon as Knox was out of the country, the embassy declared “case closed,” perhaps not expecting that her trials would continue. Those who have followed the case know that the acquittal that prompted her release was later annulled in its entirety by Italy’s Supreme Court, which called for a second appeal trial to be held in a separate venue: Florence….

For the British and Italian authorities, and family members of Meredith Kercher who have patiently waited out the Italian legal system, perhaps the “case closed” cable jumped the gun. Once an American citizen is out of the country where he or she is in trouble, what duty does the embassy have to keep following legal developments that involve an American not physically in the country?

Did the embassy re-open the case later once the Supreme Court quashed the acquittal or is it “out of sight, out of mind,” and once an American in trouble abroad is no longer abroad, the embassy in that country can effectively wash its hands of the matter? Is it still considered “Case Closed”?

As the possibility of an extradition process hangs in the balance with the upcoming March 25 supreme court decision, the documents may provide some additional material for legal scholars to consider.

As the State Department letter points out, there are still 11 documents that fall under the umbrella of my initial FOIA request that have not been released that require further coordination.

Based on the content of my 2012 request, I believe these may be documents relating to then Sen. John Kerry and the U.S. Committee on Foreign Relations, of which he was chairman from 2009-2013 [ed note: and Senator Cantwell was a committee member] and to which specific FOIA requests were made, and for which I have not yet received response.

I have scanned and uploaded the 2-page FOIA response and 5 released cables (Oct 2011, June 2011, March 2011, November 2010, September 2010) below…

Andrea Vogt included images of those six seemingly mundane documents she received below the report, praises the Embassy and State, and voices no suspicions.

Amazingly, not one other American reporter has pursued this obvious angle. Still, in a political fuss, all those many others described in Part 1 above could also choose to do so.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

The Scale Of Evil By Forensic Psychologist Professor Michael Stone Of Columbia University NYC

Posted by Mark

1. Who Is Dr Stone

Dr Stone is increasingly on American TV and in American courts as demands for better answers to heinous crimes grow.

He has published a lot and is a partner in a research clinic in New York. These are Dr Stone’s professional credentials as posted on Psychology Today.

Dr. Michael Stone is a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia. His specialty is personality disorders - most especially “borderline personality disorder.” But in recent years he has concentrated as well on the extremes of personality, as shown by persons who show antisocial, psychopathic, and sadistic traits. This led to an interest in the kinds of people committing murder - spanning the spectrum from jealousy murders to serial killers and torturers. Recently he served as the host of the Discovery Channel show, “Most Evil,” for which he was sent around the country interviewing serial killers and murderers of other types.

This experience, plus his research over the past twenty years, led to his writing The Anatomy of Evil (appearing in July of 2009). The book explores the “why” factor: what are the inborn and environmental factors that cause certain people to commit murder and, at the extreme end, to behave with uncommon cruelty toward their fellow man. Modeled after Dante’s Inferno, the book progresses from the least to the most “evil” crimes, and contains a chapter devoted to recent contributions from neuroscience toward understanding the mind of the psychopath.

2. Interviews On Radio And TV

In the video above, how Dr Stone explained his scale of evil on a Canadian interview show, and below how he explained it on American National Public Radio.

Perhaps no surprises for Americans in the names of the killers in the examples. How they divide up confirms some postings we have had here before. For one thing, most don’t fit in the full-blown psychopathic group (Group 4). 

Introduction

Columbia University professor Michael Stone knows evil. He’s a forensic psychologist “” the type of expert that provides testimony on the mental state of accused murderers when a declaration of insanity can mean the difference between life and death row.

Inspired by the structure of Dante’s circles of hell, Stone has created his own 22-point “Gradations of Evil” scale, made up of murderers in the 20th century. “I thought it would be an interesting thing to do,” he says.

His scale is loosely divided into three tiers. First are impulsive evil-doers: driven to a single act of murder in a moment of rage or jealousy. Next are people who lack extreme psychopathic features, but may be psychotic “” that is, clinically delusional or out of touch with reality. Last are the profoundly psychopathic, or “those who possess superficial charm, glib speech, grandiosity, but most importantly cunning and manipulativeness,” Stone says. “They have no remorse for what they’ve done to other people.”

Stone hopes the scale could someday be used in prosecutions. “The people at the very end of the scale have certain things about their childhood backgrounds that are different,” he says, from those who appear earlier in the scale. And because the scale follows a continuum of likelihood a killer will kill again, courts may be able to better categorize the risks posed by releasing a psychopath.

Conspicuously absent from Stone’s scale are wartime evil-doers. “My scale is a scale for evil in peacetime,” he says. That’s because assessing wartime evil from a criminal-psychological standpoint is more complicated because of factors like culture, history and religion.”

And in war, there are often two sides. Take Hitler, Stone says. “He thought we were evil, we thought he was evil.” But, he adds, “in that particular case, we were right.”

The Scale Of Evil

1. NOT EVIL

1. Justified Homicide

The least malevolent: Those who have killed in self-defense and do not show psychopathic features.

Cheryl Pierson

Long Island native Cheryl Pierson had been repeatedly molested by her father after her mother died. He was a domineering man with rigid and bizarre rules “” for example, he insisted she eat three items on her dinner plate incrementally in a clockwise rotation; if she didn’t he would become violent. In desperation at age 17, she paid a classmate $400 to kill her father. She was sentenced to six months in jail for what was, in Stone’s words, “in effect a self-defense killing.”

2. IMPULSIVE MURDERERS

People who are not really psychopaths, not subject to routine unspeakable acts without remorse. “Ordinary people that get caught in some terrible situation,” Stone says.

2. Jealous Lovers, Non-Psychopathic

Though egocentric or immature, evildoers in this category committed their crimes in the heat of passion.

Jean Harris

School director Jean Harris led an exemplary life before she became romantically involved with “Scarsdale Diet” doctor Herman Tarnower. But when she found another woman’s panties in his dresser, she snapped. Harris shot her lover to death in a crime of passion “” and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

3. Willing Companions Of Killers

Still far from psychopathic, some have antisocial traits and an aberrant personality. They’re often driven by impulse.

Cindy Campbell

Jack Olsen’s 1987 book Cold Kill describes Cindy Campbell as a manipulative, chaotic woman. She claimed she was the victim of incest and was accused of enlisting her lover, David West, to kill her parents in their sleep. Both she and West were convicted of murder.
Susan Cummings. Larry Morris/AFP/Getty Images i

4. Provocative “Self-Defense”

These people kill in self-defense, but they aren’t entirely innocent themselves; they may have been “extremely provocative” toward their victim.

Susan Cummings

A shy, tomboyish daughter of a billionaire arms trader, Susan Cummings fell in love with an Argentine polo player, Roberto Villegas. But after two years together, they fought: She was stingy and began to refuse sex; he would get angry and verbally abusive. Finally she shot him to death in her kitchen in 1997. Originally charged with first-degree murder, she was ultimately convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 60 days in jail.

5. Desperate Measures

These are traumatized, desperate killers of abusive relatives or others “” but they lack “significant psychopathic traits” and are genuinely remorseful.

Susan Wyche

Susan Wyche was a topless dancer who married and had a child with Jeff Wright, a successful carpet salesman from Houston. He used cocaine, had affairs, gave Susan herpes and was physically abusive. In 2003, she reached a breaking point, and in a fit of rage stabbed him 193 times. Portrayed as a battered wife by the defense and a vicious seductress by the prosecution, she was given a relatively light sentence: 25 years. A new punishment hearing is set for October.

6. Hot Heads

Killers who act in an impetuous moment, yet without marked psychopathic features.

Issei Sagawa

Born in Japan, Issei Sagawa was pampered by his mother, but became highly irritable and prone to tantrums. In high school, he developed cannibalistic fantasies, and in 1981 he was accused of carrying one out in Paris. His victim: a Dutch student named Renee Hartevelt. He lured her to his apartment, shot her to death, sexually assaulted the body and then began eating her muscle tissue. He was declared legally insane in France and sent back to Japan, where he was released from a mental institution in 1986. He’s now a minor celebrity and has written books and magazine articles about his experience.

7. Narcissists

Highly narcissistic killers who are often possessive, not distinctly psychopathic, but “with a psychopathic core.” They typically kill loved ones or family members out of jealousy.

Prosenjit Poddar

In 1968, college student Prosenjit Poddar met Tatiana Tarasoff at a dance class in California. They dated briefly but she rejected him. Poddar then told his therapist about wanting to kill her. His therapist wanted to commit him to hospital, but Poddar convinced campus police he was not dangerous. In the summer of 1969, after she returned from a vacation, Poddar stabbed Tarasoff to death with a kitchen knife. Poddar was convicted and deported back to India after his conviction was overturned. Her parents sued the campus police for failing to warn that their daughter was in danger. This led to the famous Tarasoff decision, which ruled physicians now must warn potential victims of a psychiatric patient.

8. Fit of Rage

Non-psychopathic people, who live with an underlying, smoldering rage, then kill when that rage is ignited.

Charles Whitman

In 1966, ex-Marine Charles Whitman gunned down his wife and his mother, then ascended a tower at the University of Texas and began shooting people with a rifle. He killed 14 people and wounded 32, before being shot and killed by police. His early life was plagued by physical abuse by his father. A UT psychologist who met with Whitman before the murders described him as “oozing with hostility.” An autopsy revealed that he had a brain tumor, which may have contributed to his rage.

3. SEMI-PSYCHOPATHS

Those who show a “fair number” of psychopathic traits “” grandiosity, superficial charm, or general lack of remorse.

9. Jealous Lovers, Psychopathic

The scale’s first foray into psychopathic territory, these killers are jealous lovers but with marked psychopathic features.

Paul Snider

Paul Snider “discovered” Dorothy Stratten when she was working at a Dairy Queen at age 17. He became her manager and steered her to Playboy magazine, where she became Playmate of the Year in 1980. They married, but their relationship soon deteriorated, and she became involved with film director Peter Bogdanovich. In a jealous rage, Snider lured her to his apartment and shot her to death with a rifle before killing himself. Bob Fosse made a film about her tragic life, Star 80.

10. “In The Way” Killers, Not Fully Psychopathic

Killers of witnesses or people who are simply “in the way.” These evildoers are egocentric, but not totally psychopathic.

John List

Born in 1925, John List was described as rigid, joyless, angry and a neighborhood crank. A failed accountant with poor executive ability, he kept losing jobs, yet bought a big house for his wife and three children “” which he couldn’t afford. Caught between his indebtedness and his monstrous pride, he decided to kill his family. In 1971, he shot and killed his mother, wife and children, and fled to Colorado under an assumed name. He was at large for 18 years, until an image constructed by a forensic anthropologist was broadcast on America’s Most Wanted. He died in prison in 2008 at age 82.

11. “In The Way” Psychopaths

Psychopathic killers of people “in the way.” Premeditation is not usually a major factor in their killings.

Jeffrey MacDonald

An Army Green Beret doctor named Jeffrey MacDonald began showing signs of violence and hatred of women in his adolescence. In 1970, was accused of killing his wife and daughters, and then staging the scene to look like a cult slaying in the mold of Charles Manson. MacDonald was convicted of murder, but his case “” the subject of the book Fatal Vision “” has dragged on for four decades. In August 2010, his lawyers filed a brief in federal court asking for a new trial and claiming that DNA evidence could prove MacDonald’s innocence.

12. Power-Hungry And Cornered

Power-hungry psychopaths who kill when “cornered,” or placed in a situation they wouldn’t be able to escape with their power intact.

Jim Jones

Born in 1931, Jim Jones was attracted early on to a Pentecostal religious group that practiced “speaking in tongues.” He later became a charismatic leader of the Peoples Temple. Grandiose and fanatic, as well as psychopathic and paranoid, he gathered a large group of followers and moved with them to Guyana. In 1978, U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan and his entourage went to Guyana to investigate; he and four others were shot and killed. Cornered, Jones told his followers to commit group suicide. In all, 914 people died, 276 of them children. He also took his own life.

13. Inadequate And Rageful

Murderers with shortcomings that follow them throughout life, who also express psychopathic impulses and are prone to rage.

Karla Faye Tucker

Karla Faye Tucker was born the illegitimate daughter of prostitute and abused drugs since she was 9. She married at 16 “” by which time she had already had a hysterectomy for pelvic inflammatory disease. She divorced at 20. In 1983, she and boyfriend Daniel Garrett invaded the apartment of Jerry Lynn Dean while the two were high on methadone, valium, heroin and alcohol. Tucker and Garrett killed Dean and the woman he was with, using a hammer and pickaxe. After 14 years on death row, she was executed in 1998. She was the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War.

14. Schemers

Ruthlessly self-centered and psychopathic, schemers stop at nothing to deceive, con and steal.

Sante Kimes

Sante Kimes was born in 1934 and soon became a self-trained con artist. Briefly married to Lee Powers, she had a son, Kenny. Many more thefts followed, along with use of numerous aliases. She made her son into a kind of slave; the two became “grifters” “” accomplished at stealing. In 1998 she and her son conned their way into the good graces of Irene Silverman, a wealthy Fifth Avenue widow in New York City. They got her to sign over her property and then killed her, disposing of her body. Kimes is a classic psychopath, and is considered responsible for other murders besides that of Silverman. She and her son are serving life sentences.

15. Cold-Blooded Spree

Murderers who kill multiple people calmly and with a psychopathic motive. Often pathological in their denial of guilt or inability to confront reality.

Charles Manson

Charles Manson was born in 1934 to a troubled family. At a young age, he began stealing, ending up in reformatories then jail and prisons. In his 30s he began to attract a following of waif-like women who were in his thrall. Then in 1969 he had his group invade the home of pregnant actress Sharon Tate, killing her, her unborn baby and four friends. Later they killed Rosemary LaBianca, scrawling “Death to Pigs” in her blood around the house. He received the death penalty, later commuted to a life term in Corcoran Prison in California.

4. PSYCHOPATHS

Fully psychopathic by every modern definition.

16. Vicious Psychopaths

Those who commit multiple vicious acts that may also include murder, rape or mutilation.

Miyazaki Tsutomu

Born in 1962 into a wealthy Japanese family, Miyazaki Tsutomu had a congenital hand defect, such that he was unable to hold his hands palm-up. He was ostracized as a child and began to lurk around young girls, stalking them. In 1989, he kidnapped and murdered four young girls, mutilated their bodies and drank the blood of one victim. When his crimes were discovered, his father committed suicide out of shame. Miyazaki coldly regarded that as “just punishment” for not raising him correctly. He was executed in Tokyo in 2008.

17. The Sexually Perverse

Serial killers with some element of sexual perversion in their crimes. In males, rape is usually the primary motive and killing follows to hide the evidence. Torture is not a primary motive.

Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy was born in 1946, performed well in school and was acutely shy. His sexual homicides began in earnest in 1974, near his alma mater, the University of Washington. He worked his way down to Florida, luring, raping and killing at least 28 girls en route. He escaped from a Colorado prison in 1977, and continued killing until identified and apprehended (thanks to bite marks that matched his teeth) in 1978. He was executed in Florida in 1989.

18. Torturing Murderers

Though psychotic, they do not typically prolong their torture. Murder, not torture, is their primary motivation.

Gary Ridgeway

Gary Ridgeway, a.k.a the “Green River Killer,” grew up in Washington state. He was troubled by his sexual attraction to his mother and of his feelings of lust and humiliation. He’s one of the serial killers showing the famous childhood “triad” of bed-wetting, fire-setting, and animal torture. He began serial killing of prostitutes in earnest after a third divorce in 1982. Some investigators believe he may have killed as many as 90 women, subjecting some to bondage or necrophilia. He’s now serving 48 life sentences plus 480 years.

19. Non-Homicidal Psychopaths

Psychopaths who fall short of murder, yet engage in terrorism, subjugation, intimidation or rape.

Gary Steven Krist

Gary Steven Krist had served prison time for robbery and fraud in three different states before he was 18. Out of prison in 1968 at age 23, he planned a ransom kidnapping. His victim was Barbara Mackle. Krist buried her underground, allowing her to breathe using a tube, while he awaited a $500,000 ransom from her father. She was rescued after 83 hours buried alive. He was sentenced to life in prison, but was paroled and later convicted of importing cocaine into the United States. He’s in a federal prison in Florida, with a planned release in November 2010.

20. Murdering Torturers

Psychotic (legally insane) and primarily motivated by their desire to torture.

Joseph Kallinger

From a young age, Joseph Kallinger’s foster family abused him so severely that at age 6 he suffered a hernia inflicted by his foster father. He was psychotic and schizophrenic, and when he married and had children, he was equally brutal. In 1972 he was held on charges of child abuse but was later released. In 1974, he and his 13-year-old son Michael began to break into houses in Philadelphia, Baltimore and New Jersey, where they terrorized and tortured four families, and then sexually assaulted and killed a 21-year-old nurse. Finally arrested, he was sentenced to life, and then sent to a mental hospital where he died in 1996 at age 59.

21. Pure Torturers

Not all torturers murder. These psychopaths (evaluated to be in touch with reality) are preoccupied with torture “in the extreme,” but never convicted of murder.

Cameron Hooker

Cameron Hooker was born in 1953. As he grew older he read pornography, particularly that which portrayed women being tortured. He married his wife, Janice, in 1975. He fantasized about having his own sex slave and allegedly reached an agreement with his wife that she could have a baby if he could have a sex slave. After the birth of their child, Hooker kidnapped 20-year-old Colleen Stan in 1977 and kept her captive for seven years. She was whipped, strangled, burned, electrically shocked and raped. For much of that time, she was locked inside a box for 23 hours a day. She and Hooker’s wife fled together in 1984. He was convicted and sentenced to 104 years in prison.

22. Psychopathic Torture-Murderers

Defined by a primary motivation to inflict prolonged, diabolical torture. Most in this category are male serial killers.

Jeffrey Dahmer

Born in 1960 in Milwaukee, Jeffrey Dahmer was sexually molested by a neighbor when he was 8. At 10, he was decapitating animals and mounting their heads on stakes in the backyard. At 17 he committed his first murder, a male hitchhiker whom he bludgeoned, strangled, dismembered and buried. After a failed stint in the Army, his serial killing began in earnest in the late 80s, ending up with at least 17 victims “” all males, some homosexual, like Dahmer. Finally arrested in 1991, he was convicted the next year of 15 murders and sentenced to 936 years in prison. In 1994, another inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin bludgeoned Dahmer to death with a bar from a weight machine.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

The Case For More Observation And Firmer Action As Psychopaths Among Us Do Enormous Harm

Posted by SeekingUnderstanding

Above: The murdered teacher Ann Maguire and convicted killer Will Cornick


Here is an example of the much tougher action to protect society which judges worldwide are inclining toward.

In Leeds in the UK a 16-year old boy has been sentenced to 20 years.  He has also been publicly named, unusual for one so young,  and an image released, to hopefully protect the public from him for the rest of his life. The judge warned him that he may never be released.

The more you read about Will Cornick the worse it gets.

He slashed a popular teacher in front of a whole class. She escaped wounded and terrified but he followed her to another room with glass panes and tried to push in. Another teacher kept him out but Ann Maguire was too far gone.

Grim clues are still coming to light. From one of the latest reports. 

Cornick attacked Mrs Maguire after boasting to friends that he was going to kill her. He also said he was going to murder other teachers, including a pregnant woman “˜so as to kill her unborn child’.

He later told doctors: “˜I said I was going to do other stuff but I never got the chance, other murders. It was a triple homicide.’

After the murder the teenager told psychiatrists that he “˜couldn’t give a s***’ and added: “˜Everything I’ve done is fine and dandy.’...

Far from having an unhappy upbringing, Cornick comes from a middleclass background and his parents have been described as loving and supportive…

Cornick’s former girlfriend believes Mrs Maguire, who has been called the ‘mother of the school’, was killed because she was being tough on the intelligent teenager in a bid to unlock his potential…

Friends had started to think of him as a “˜loner and weirdo’ and “˜disturbing’ aspects of his personality became apparent.

He spoke openly about murdering his teacher, messaging a friend on Facebook about brutally killing her and spending the rest of his life in jail. But no one - including his former girlfriend - believed he was capable of carrying out such psychotic threats.

After the murder it was revealed that he had numerous images of knives on his mobile phone. The teenager used a picture of the Grim Reaper for his Facebook profile.  He also had a keen interest in ultra-violent video games, including Dark Souls II, in which players hack zombies to pieces.

Players devour the souls of their fallen enemies to the sound of cries of agony. Disturbing images include a character made up of hundreds of human corpses. It was voted one of the ten Most Violent Video Games of 2014.

One pupil recalled Cornick saying disgusting things at a party. He said: “˜He was saying twisted stuff like “imagine jumping on a pregnant woman and seeing the baby come out”, and saying horrible stuff about cancer and stuff like that…

The teenager later confessed to a psychiatrist that the killing had been on his mind for three years, and one expert said he had engaged in a “˜considerable amount of fantasy’ about killing Mrs Maguire.

And so the debate on psychopathy and what to do about it ratches up anothert notch.

The word ‘psychopath’, like ‘narcissist’,has become known in common usage. This is both good and bad,- good if we understand more, yet bad if we assume wrongly or more superficially.

One assumption too frequently made is an association with only adulthood. Surely a child can’t be psychopathic? Unfortunately the answer is Yes.

Another assumption : surely if a child were to be nurtured correctly - with all the optimal nutrition and healthy lifestyle, and love possible, with encouragement and guidance from the parents - any tendency towards psychopathic traits could and would be overcome?

We want to believe this is so. It hurts us, on a fundamental human level, to be informed that,

‘No, this is not the case’.

A child from what is considered a ‘good background’ CAN nevertheless have a psychopathic personality. (This is also what the judge said in the Cormick trial).

With the advance of new technology - in particular MRI studies of the brain- we are beginning to explore and discover the structural differences in people’s brains (at every age). We are also recording the differences in our responses to varying events, stimulation, and emotion.

Our brains do not react in the same ways, not at all. Even introverts and extraverts are physiologically different, with regard to the amount of stimulation they can take, and also what might be called ‘method’ pathways.

In the more normal mind, it is a customary impulse to respond to pain, humiliation etc by lashing out oneself. The “˜taking it out on others’ scenario.

But, from when we are very young,this impulse is moderated by an awareness of what the pain we would be causing would feel like. In other words, we feel like pinching our sister very hard, say because she has stolen something small, but we remember how that severe pinch would feel, and bruise etc, and so we restrain.

As we continue to grow, this restraint to the impulse becomes a strong and immediate inhibition. Hence we become socialised and civilised. We feel each others’ pain, literally. It is a function of imagination, memory and neurology.

There is growing evidence from advancing research that in the truly psychopathic mind, this inhibition does not happen, because the first stage - of feeling for others - is absent. Perhaps some of the pathways are missing or diminished; the amygdala is different, perhaps, or other brain structures.

Such people therefore are able to impose violence and pain upon others with impunity. Hence we observe and say they are “˜cold’.

One important difference between this type and the more normal type of mind, is that they are like this irrespective of whether they have been loved or not. Of course disadvantageous and dysfunctional upbringings make the situations a whole lot worse.

Experiments have been done, and are still being explored, to define the extent of these differences, with some accuracy. It will take some time, as of course the neurology in the brain is highly complex, and subtle, and a single event will involve several or many pathways and several ‘hubs’ -as one might describe them.

So far, Baron-Cohen has identified about twelve ‘centres’ that will be involved in high or low empathy circuits in the brain. There may be more. Also, he and other distinguished researchers (many of whom have spent their life’s work on the subject) are examining what the genetic components are that underlie psychopathic traits.

Unfortunately, all this worthwhile work meets some resistance, and therefore delay (and difficulty in funding of course). Sadly such resistance comes from both left and right, ( leaving the researchers treading a fine line down the centre).

On the left, those who advocate improving social conditions, alleviating poverty, greater nurturing etc., fear that a discovery of the violent, cruel, anarchic nature ‘being genetic’ would undermine their raison d’être, and the case for more funding for the deprived and under-privileged.

On the right, there is a substantial fear, valid to a degree, that finding the root cause of psychopathic behaviour in brain structure and genes would give the worst and most unanswerable opt-out clause when psychopaths are on trial, to the effect of,

“Sorry, M’Lord, I couldn’t help it ; it’s in me genes”. (Etc).

A nightmare, indeed, for the prosecution.

This objection is something psychologists are already familiar with, where attempts are made by the defense to proffer psychological truths or diagnoses as mitigating factors, or ‘get-out’ clauses.

It cannot be stated clearly enough : to understand something is not to excuse it. To establish something in fact does not dilute the need to bear responsibility for the behaviour that ensues from it.

We can, and must, find ways to exert restraint and control over anti-social, destructive and undesirable behaviour. Preferably before it becomes criminal behaviour. It becomes more and more imperative, as we realize that ‘the enemy’ - the terrorist - the destroyer- moves among us, as ‘the kid next door’.

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Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Sollecito Posting Of Knox’s Diary: Is He Again Prodding Knox Closer To The Fire To Help Himself?

Posted by Peter Quennell

Above and below: interiors of Capanne Prison built about a decade ago; Knox front-row right?


Another potshot in the escalating Knox/Sollecito wars?

In November 2007 in Capanne Prison Knox wrote prolifically in English in a diary.  Sollecito has now aggressively put it online together with the official Italian translation, as spotted by the sharp eyes of main poster Nell

The diary was taken by prison authorities, apparently with no protest by Knox as she was pre-warned that her cell would need to be searched. The English original and an Italian translation were entered into evidence at trial, though the diary played no overt role of which we are aware.

Defense forces helpfully offered it around perhaps in the hope that it would make the authorities not look so good.

The diary then became the core of a 2008 book Amanda And The Others by Fiorenza Sarzanini, a prominent Italian journalist on the staff of the major newspaper Corriere.

The book was not entirely unsympathetic to the real Knox. But Knox’s lawyers were seemingly concerned that her peculiar writings as riffed-upon by Sarzanini could subvert the preferred Knox image in court - though frankly that image was pretty daffy too.

The Knox team sued the holding company of Corriere. They won an award in the first round, then that was reversed on appeal, and then last year Cassation partially reversed that verdict, and Knox was granted an award.

Italian media reported all of this, but we didnt see any jubilant report in the US. Maybe because all Knox case-related income can be clawed back under US and Italian bloodmoney laws.

However, according to the Italian reports, Corriere’s legal fault was held not to be one of copyright or of the privacy of Knox. It was in publishing passages in which Knox negatively highlighted others, such as the list of those she had had sex with, a no-no under Italian privacy laws.

The Sarzanini book is still on sale in Italy, and there was no court ruling that it had to be withdrawn. The same passages Sollecito has put online are also in Italian in that book. There seems nothing in US or UK law that would forbid publishing of an English-language version if Fiorenza Sarzanini wants to do that.

Ironically Knox with her own 2013 book seems to have run afoul of the self-same laws in her serial defaming of officials, and in due course she stands to lose much more than she had gained from that small award.

Knox’s book was apparently put into Italian, though Italian and British editions were dropped at the last minute, days after Cassation ruled against Knox, in April last year. Oggi translated and published passages from the book which will see Oggi also taken to court.

Hard to believe but Knox’s bamboozled shadow writer Linda Kulman and HarperCollins New York were reported as scrambling to remove a lot of defamatory passages from the US version before Knox’s book went out.

We have posted several excerpts, which were pure fiction, and it is still the nasty work of a troubling psyche. Presumably that is Sollecito’s point.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Advisor Ted Simon Jumps Ship? With Legal And Financial Woes Will The Other Paid Help Stay?

Posted by Peter Quennell

Paid help Robert Barnett, Linda Kulman, Carlo Dalla Vedova, and Luciano Ghirga


Knox seems to badly need several kinds of professional help.

But Ted Simon simply parroting the foolish Steve Moore and the foolish Bruce Fischer was not really what we had in mind. If Ted Simon really is Knox’s ex-lawyer what a legal and financial mess he leaves behind.

In America there is a common legal remark on TV: that the coverup is often worse than the crime. It is often for the coverup that perps get sentenced to the longest time - often that is the only sentence they get.

Had the Knox and Sollecito forces been smart enough to take the route Dr Mignini hinted at in 2007 - that this was a hazing with sexual humiliation that spiraled out of control - and shown remorse as Guede to some extent did - the two might have faced lesser charges, been out early, and brought to an early end some of the terrible agony inflicted on Meredith’s ailing family over nearly seven years.

The paid and unpaid help might now be doing just fine.

But of course the smart route was ignored. The coverup for Knox seems totally on the rocks. Italy holds all the cards. As described in the past several posts, legal and financial nightmares for the Knox and Sollecito paid and unpaid help could be ahead. For one thing, they could all end up unpaid.

• Remember, the prosecution case presented at trial in 2009 was powerful and decisive, and the defenses were so demoralised in the summer and fall that two defense lawyers were said to have nearly walked.


• Remember, the Knox forces never tell you this, as Steve Moore etc make inane charges about corruption on the prosecution side, but the ONLY known corruption in the case was on the defense side.

It is openly known in Italy that the judicial appointments to the 2011 appeal court were corrupt. It was a hijacked court.

Judge Chiari and Prosecutor Comodi both publicly made this quite plain, Dr Galati said Cassation would set things right, the CSM edged Judge Hellmann into retirement (where he still waffles on with trademark incompetence) and the Supreme Court did set things right, with the unique ferocity that we saw.

Knox’s serial lying in her own coverup was very well known (after all, it was for lying that she served three years) but the flashmob attempts at coverup based on her invented claims went on regardless, even escalated in the past several years with the arrival of new dupes. Saul Kassin and John Douglas and the seriously out-to-lunch Jim Clemente come to mind.

The Knox book bizarrely parrots Steve Moore and Bruce Fischer, presumably with Ted Simon’s okay. Now it has put her paid help’s problems on steroids. All of them including Ted Simon could be legally and financially liable in several different ways. The past several posts described some of those.

Take for example this statement Knox puts into the public domain about her Perugia lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova, in which she is accusing him of all people of falsely accusing police and prosecutors of crimes:

Carlo [Dalla Vedova], who’d never sugarcoated my situation, said, “These are small-town detectives. They chase after local drug dealers and foreigners without visas. They don’t know how to conduct a murder investigation correctly. Plus, they’re bullies. To admit fault is to admit that they’re not good at their jobs. They suspected you because you behaved differently than the others. They stuck with it because they couldn’t afford to be wrong.”

Really? He said that?

Read all the transcripts at trial and Mr Dalla Vedova’s public statements nowhere near resemble that. They were careful, honest and respectful, to say the least. He had numerous opportunities to complain. But he didnt, not once.

As we’ve remarked in the posts just below, back in 2008 he and Mr Ghirga had to publicly advise Knox to please not keep inventing things. So to this claim of Knox, when her book comes up for trial, what can Mr Dalla Vedova say?

Either he committed a new crime or his client did?

There is a good reason Giulia Bongiorno is not defending Sollecito for his own radioactive book. On that, she has already jumped ship.

Last one out the door, please turn off the lights.