Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Sollecito Thinks He Can Win Again At The Supreme Court? Think Twice, Eyes Much Sharper Now

Posted by James Raper




1. Sollecito’s Tough Road Ahead

He who comes to court for compensation must come with clean hands.

Dr Maresca’s comment quoted below is relevant and fully justified. It is not to be overlooked that in addition to the lies and suspicious behaviour we have a “definitive” (joke) judgement that also says that Knox and probably Sollecito were present in the cottage at the time of the murder.

Even if Sollecito was not then he had good cause to believe that Knox was, yet before and after his police statement he did everything he could to obfuscate the fact and mislead investigators and prosecutors, all the while trying to dig himself out of a hole.

That adds up to a number of additional criminal offences he has committed but for which he has escaped sanction.  In addition who can doubt that at the very least he had a part in, or knowledge of, the burglary staging (not criticized by the 5th Chambers), and the subsequent removal of blood traces (the evidence for which which the 5th Chamber basically ignored).

‘Doubts Remain about Sollecito’s Acquittal by Maresca’

(ANSA) - PERUGIA, Feb. 12 - The lawyer Francesco Maresca, who represents the family of Meredith Kercher, commented on the decision of the Tuscan capital judges to reject the claim for unjust detention by the young man from Puglia.

“The Court of Appeal of Florence confirms the uncertainty related to the acquittal of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox will remain in the history of Italian justice for all the unresolved doubts that it leaves”.

According to the lawyer “It confirms the statements and behavior of the young pair as a justification for custody and reminds us of the fact that the Supreme Court has placed them still in the house of the crime, so it really does seem that this absolution was to be refused at all costs.”


2. Knox & Sollecito Actions In The Week Prior To Arrest:

This is a repeat of my post of almost exactly three years ago which reveals an incriminating behavior pattern for sure.

A very strong case for guilt has been made at trial and endorsed at the first-level appeal…

The focus of this post… is upon the described behaviours of Knox and Sollecito, from the very beginning for a full week.

How The Behavior Speaks To Guilt

The early pointer of the staged break-in aside this behaviour gave investigators an insight into the pair’s possible involvement back on Day One: Behavioral pointers have continued on a par with corroborated developments in the case.

It has even continued, incredibly, since their release from prison. For me it is the thread that runs through this case having as much to do with the overall picture of culpability as the other elements .

This behaviour - to include what they have to say for themselves - is a catalogue of the inappropriate, of the implausible, of inconsistencies and contradictions, of evasions and obfuscations, to be gleaned from the accounts of Knox and Sollecito themselves and highlighted in the accounts of other witnesses. It is also to be gleaned from phone and computer records.

Taken together it is a formidable body of evidence which goes to character and culpability. It cannot be attributed to a railroading job, the machinations of a corrupt and evil prosecutor or character assassination by the media. It is also implausible if not impossible to explain it as being due to naivety, confusion or some quirkiness of character.

It amounts to the pair of them concocting stories, telling lies and misleading investigators and the general public.

Physical Evidence Array Is Already Substantial

There are numerous items of evidence which are building blocks in the prosecution case and with which we are all familiar.

    1. The staged break-in via Filomena’s window with pointers to this outside, on the windows and shutters, and throughout the bedroom.

    2. The evident partial clean up proved by footprint trails with footprints missing and what was behind the locked door.

    3. Amanda Knox’s lamp on the floor behind Meredith’s locked door which she only conceded was her own at trial, under pressure.

    4. Knox’s dried and congealed blood on the tap in the small bathroom that Amanda Knox and Meredith shared.

    5. The bloody footprint on the mat in that bathroom definitively attributed to Sollecito rather than Guede

    6.  The mixed DNA of Knox and Meredith Kercher found in blood in the basin, the bidet and on the box of Q tips in that bathroom

    7. Two luminol enhanced mixed traces containing DNA belonging to Knox and Meredith Kercher, one in the corridor and the other in Filomena’s room

    8. Two luminol enhanced footprints of Knox in the corridor and one of Sollecito immediately outside Meredith’s room.

    9. The knife taken from Sollecito’s apartment with Meredith Kercher’s DNA on the blade and Knox’s DNA on the handle and on the blade

    10. Meredith Kercher’s bra clasp with Sollecito’s DNA on a hook and contamination possibilities definitively ruled out.
Behaviors In The First Week Of November 2007

I don’t want to make this an unduly long post. Accordingly I am going to concentrate on the period up to that famous police interrogation analysed just below. As to that critical period I will be selective but it should be enough.


The Lady With The Mop?

The story (in Knox’s e-mail) that she had visited the cottage to collect a mop, have a shower and get a change of clothing, earlier on the morning of the 2nd November, but did not notice that Filomena’s window had been broken and her room trashed is just that - a made up story. It is entirely implausible and the account unreliable for a number of reasons including-

    (a) it is hard to believe that she did not notice the hard to miss fact that the shutters to Filomena’s window were (as they were found) open - this would have alerted her to the likelihood that Filomena was back home which she would, of course, have checked out of curiosity if nothing else given that she found no one home.

    (b) her claim that Filomena’s door was shut is contradicted by Sollecito who wrote (prison diary) that when he later entered the cottage with Knox   Filomena’s door was wide open.

    (c) it is hard to believe that she took a shower without noticing until after her shower (as she claimed) that there was blood on the bathroom mat, including a bloody footprint. In fact she didn’t even claim to notice that it was a footprint despite the fact that it was obviously so.

    (d) it is hard to believe that having found the front door wide open and having found blood, and having opted for a shower and to blow dry her hair, she never got round to checking for any sign of Meredith’s presence. Any one else would have tried her door to check whether or not she was home.

    (e) from her appearance at the cottage that morning it is hard to believe that she took a shower at all (let alone blow dried her hair) and the cops remarked that she reeked of body odour.

    (f)  less problematic but nevertheless still somewhat surprising is that as she is drying her hair she makes a fuss over shit (left by Guede) in the toilet,  describes herself as being “uncomfortable” about it but does not flush it away before grabbing the mop and leaving.



The Two Stayed At Home?

The story that Knox and Sollecito had spent the previous night (the night of Meredith’s murder) indoors, critically from 9 pm onwards, that both had slept and that Knox had been the first to rise at about 10.30 am the next morning is implausible and uncorroborated, not only because this alibi is directly contradicted by the testimony of Curatolo and Quintavalle, and Sollecito’s statement to the police that Knox had gone out and not returned until about 1 am, but also in view of the following facts.

    (a) Curatolo claimed to have first seen the Knox and Sollecito in Piazza Grimana shortly after 9.30 pm but Knox claimed in her trial testimony that she and Raffaele had cooked and eaten a meal between 9.30 and 10 pm.
    GCM:  Can you say what time this was?

    AK:  umm, around, umm, we ate around 9.30 or 10, and then after we had eaten, and he was washing the dishes, well, as I said, I don’t look at the clock much, but it was around 10. And”¦he”¦umm”¦well, he was washing the dishes and, umm, the water was coming out and he was very bummed,  displeased, he told me he had just had that thing repaired. He was annoyed that it had broken again. So”¦umm

    LG:  Yes, so you talked a bit. Then what did you do?

    AK:  Then we smoked a joint together”¦”¦we made love”¦..then we fell asleep.

    Unfortunately Sollecito’s father himself torpedoed this dodge by telling the court that when he phoned his son at 8.42 pm Sollecito had told him that there had been a water leak while he was washing the dishes. Taking into account Knox’s testimony that they had eaten before the dish washing, this places the meal and dish washing before that call.

    (b) Sollecito told the police that at about 11 pm he had received a call from his father on his land line. Not only is that not confirmed by his father but there is no log of such a call.

    (c) There is no log of a call to his mobile at that time either though his father had sent a text message at that time but which Sollecito did not receive until 6. 03 am the following morning. We know that he had received it at that time because that is the time at which it is logged in the phone records.  Sollecito had just turned his phone on and clearly the phone had been off when the text message was sent.

    (d) There is no record of any phone activity for either of them from after the 8.42 pm call to, in Sollecito’s case, receipt of that text message at 6.03 am,  and in Knox’s case her call to Meredith’s English phone at 12.07 pm the next day.

    A further word about this Point (d) here as Knox has released her phone records on her web site. In her case it has to be said that this is not so unusual. Up until the 30th October there is no regular pattern of late or early morning phone activity.

    It is interesting to note, however, that as of the 30th October there is a spate of texts and calls between her and a young Greek known to us as Spiros.  Communication between them had in fact been going on since the beginning of October but there are 5 texts in the afternoon of the 30th, two telephone calls in the afternoon and a call at 11.38 pm on Halloween.

    In the early hours of the following morning there are a couple of calls between the two. In fact we know that the two met up together for Halloween as Knox was at a loose end.  Meredith had shrugged her off and Raffaele was attending a friend’s graduation dinner out of town.

    Sollecito is different as his father was in the habit of calling at all hours just to find out what his son was doing and, as we know, he had called late only to find that his son’s phone was switched off.

    In the case of Knox she admitted in any event that her phone had been switched off, “to save the battery”.

    (e) There is no record of any activity on Sollecito’s computer after 9.15 pm and until 5.32 am the following morning when music was played for half an hour.  This contradicts the claim that Sollecito had smoked pot and interacted with his computer until midnight and that they had both slept until late the following morning.

    (f) The fact that the next morning, outside the cottage, both Knox and Sollecito looked utterly exhausted. This belies the alibi that they had spent a quiet night indoors and had only risen late that morning.

The Fake Call To Knox’s Mum in Seattle?

Knox falsely claims in her book that having had her shower she called her mother on her way back to Sollecito’s apartment as she was beginning to have concerns as to what she had seen at the cottage. Her mother tells her to raise her concerns with Raffaele and the other flatmates and Knox says that she then immediately called Filomena. Filomena tells her to get hold of Meredith by phone which she tries to do by calling Meredith’s English phone first, then her Italian one.

    (a) How does this correlate to the contents of her e-mail of the 11/04/07?

    (b) How does this correlate to Knox’s phone records?

    (c) There is no mention of a call to her mother at all in the e-mail. This from her e-mail -
    “”¦.and I returned to Raffaele’s place. After we had used the mop to clean up the kitchen I told Raffaele about what I had seen in the house over breakfast.  The strange blood in the bathroom, the door wide open, the shit in the toilet.  He suggested I call one of my roommates, so I called Filomena”¦”¦”¦..
    Filomena seemed really worried so I told her I’d call Meredith and then call her back. I called both of Meredith’s phones the English one first and last and the Italian one in between. The first time I called the English phone it rang and then sounded as if there was disturbance, but no one answered. I then called the Italian phone and it just kept ringing, no answer. I called the English phone again and this time an English voice told me the phone was out of service.”

    (d) the phone records are as follows for 2 November 2007:

    Ist call of the day @  12.07.12 (to Meredith’s English phone)  - 16 seconds

    2nd call   @  12.08.44 (to Filomena)  -  68 seconds

    3rd call   @ 12.11.02 (to Meredith’s Italian phone)  -  3 seconds

    4th call @ 12.11.54 (to Meredith’s English phone)  - 4 seconds

    8th call   @  12..47.23 (first call to her mother) - 88 seconds

    (e) The discrepancies are numerous, see these examples:

    1. The first call to her mother was not just after leaving the cottage but 40 minutes after the call to Filomena, and the call to Filomena had been placed after she had returned to Raffaele’s place and after they had used the mop and had breakfast. In fact, say about an hour after she left the cottage.

    2.  The first call to Meredith’s English phone was placed before the call to Filomena, and not after as Knox would have it in her e-mail. A minute before,  but Knox did not mention this to Filomena, as confirmed by the e-mail and Filomena’s testimony.

    3. The first call to Meredith’s English phone disappears entirely in Knox’s book.

    4.  The call to the Italian phone did not just keep ringing. The connection was for 3 seconds and this was followed by a connection to the English phone for 4 seconds.

    5.  The English phone was not switched off or out of service. Mrs Lana’s daughter had found it. She said that she would not have done so but for it ringing (the 12.07 call for 16 seconds?). She picked it up and took it into the house where it rang again (the 12.11 call - 4 seconds?). A name appeared on the screen as it rang : “Amanda”.

    6.  The 3 and 4 second calls are highly suspicious. The Italian phone was undoubtedly in the possession of the postal police. According to Massei it’s answering service was activated, accounting for the log. Clearly Knox did not even bother to leave a message for Meredith as it would take longer than 3 seconds just to listen to the answering service. This is not the behaviour of someone genuinely concerned about another.

My Observations:

1.  In her e-mail, and repeated in her trial testimony, Knox says that she woke up around 10.30 am, grabbed a few things and walked the 5 minutes back to the cottage. If the first call to her mother was about an hour after she left the cottage (see before), then she left the cottage at about 11.47 am, which means that she spent over an hour there. Either that or she spent more (a lot more)  than 20 minutes at Raffaele’s place before calling Filomena. The latter would be more likely as it is difficult to conceive that she spent over an hour at the cottage. She didn’t have the heating on when she was there. Either way there is a period of about an hour and a half between when she might have tried to contact Meredith or raise the alarm and actually doing so.

2.  That we are right to be incredulous about this is borne out by the false claim in Knox”˜s book. That false claim is significant and can only be because Knox is aware of the problem and feels she needs to add some support to her implausible story of the mop/shower visit and to conceal the real reasons for the inactivity and delay connected with it.

3. That it is incredible is even belatedly acknowledged by Sollecito’s feeble but revealing attempt to distance himself from Knox in a CNN interview on the 28 Feb this year. “Certainly I asked her questions” he said. “Why did you take a shower? Why did you spend so much time there?”

4.  That she makes that false claim and has constantly stonewalled and/or misplaced the 16 second call to Meredith’s English phone is indicative of her guilty knowledge. Her guilty knowledge with respect to the 16 second call was that it was made to ascertain whether or not the phones had been located before she called Filomena, and hence for her it was not (incredulous though this is without such explanation) a pertinent fact for her to bring up with Filomena.


The Real Call To Knox’s Mum In Seattle?

As to the 12.47 call to her mother itself (4.47 am Seattle time and prior to the discovery of Meredith”˜s body) Knox not only did not mention that in her e-mail but in her trial testimony she steadfastly declined to recall that it had occurred.

She clearly did not want, or could not be trusted, to discuss why the call had occurred and what had transpired in conversation with her mother before the discovery of Meredith’s body.

Not only was the timing of the 12.47 call inconvenient to her mother but I found it interesting to note from Knox’s phone records (covering 2nd Oct - 3rd November) that mother and daughter do not appear to have called or texted each other once up until that 12.47 call.

It would appear then that in so far as they remained in direct communication with each other for that period it must have been by e-mail. One can therefore imagine that her mother was very surprised to receive that call.

It is also very difficult to accept that Knox could not recall a phone call she was not in the habit of making. (On the other hand the same records show that it was not at all unusual for Knox and Meredith to communicate with other on Meredith’s English phone.)


Sollecito’s Call From His Dad?

At the cottage, and prior to the above call, Sollecito received a call from his father at 12.40 am. Do we know what they discussed? It would in any event have been after the discovery of Filomena’s broken window and (allegedly) Sollecito’s (rather feeble) attempt to beak down Meredith’s door.

Did the responsible adult advise his son to do the obvious and call the police? One would think so, but then why was there a 10 minute delay before he called his sister in the Carabinieri at 12.50 am? Indeed, why call his sister at all? Filomena had also urged Knox to call the police when she called at 12.35.The delay might be explained by the unexpected arrival of the postal police and if this was the case then it was before Sollecito called the 112 emergency services.


The Claims Of Finding Meredith’s Body?

Neither Knox nor Sollecito saw into Meredith’s room when the door was broken down and her body discovered on the floor under a quilt. Yet in the immediate aftermath it is as if they have wanted others to believe that it was they who discovered her body and in the bragging about this there have been disclosures, not only as to what they should not have been aware but also suggestive of disturbed personalities. This behaviour was remarkable for all the wrong reasons.

    (a)  Luca Altieri”˜s testimony makes it clear that Knox and Sollecito had heard about Meredith”˜s cut throat directly from him during the car ride to the police station.

    However her bizarre and grotesque allusion in the early moments of the investigation to the body being found stuffed into the closet (wardrobe) is not just factually incorrect (it was lying to the side of the closet) but bears correlation to the later forensic findings based on blood splatter in front of and on the closet door, that Meredith had been thrust up against the closet after having been stabbed in the throat.

    (b)  The behaviour of Knox and Sollecito at the police station is documented in the testimony of Meredith’s English girlfriends and of the police. Whilst it is true that people react to grief in different ways it is difficult to ascribe grief to Knox’s behaviour. Emotionally she was cold towards Meredith’s friends and occasionally went out of her way to upset them with barbed and callous remarks.

    The fact that Knox was not observed to cry and wanted to talk about what had happened is not of itself indicative of anything but remarks like “What the fuck do you think, she bled to death” and her kissing and canoodling with Raffaele (including them making smacking noises with their lips when they blew kisses to each other) in front of the others was not normal.

    Rather chilling in retrospect was a scene between the pair of them when Knox found the word “minaccia” ( in english - threat) amusing and made a play of it with Sollecito in front of witnesses.

    (c) Grief is in any event reserved for friends and relations, or people one much admires. The evidence is that the initial short friendship between the two had cooled to the extent that Meredith was studiously, if politely, avoiding being around Knox. For the narcissistic and attention seeking american girl this would have been difficult to ignore and may well have offended her.

    (d)  The next day Sollecito was willingly collared by a reporter from the Sunday Mirror and told her about the horror of finding the body.
    “Yes I knew her. I found her body.”

    “It is something I never hope to see again,” he said. “There was blood everywhere and I couldn’t take it all in.”

    “My girlfriend was her flatmate and she was crying and screaming, ‘How could anyone do this?’”

    Sollecito went on to tell the reporter that “It was a normal night. Meredith had gone out with one of her English friends and Amanda and I went to party with one of my friends. The next day, around lunchtime, Amanda went back to their apartment to have a shower.”

About the only thing that is true here is that he knew Meredith.

Comments

There are a number of additional points which I mentioned in my book. Knox’s whole e-mail is basically a fraud.

“The possible innocent explanation for the front door being open does not make sense. The trash bin is just outside the entrance gate and if someone had nipped out to talk to the boys below, Knox does not check there at any time before leaving. Had a flatmate nipped out for another reason, perhaps to the chemists, or whatever, then she would surely have not been delayed so long that she would not encounter Knox on her return. Knox must have been at the cottage for an appreciable amount of time. This will be considered in Chapter 11.”

“She describes how she ran out onto the terrace at the back of the cottage to try and see in through Meredith’s window. Take a look at the picture below. We see the terrace and Meredith’s bedroom window to the right.”

“For someone who was entirely familiar with where she lived, and who had admitted to much enjoying the spectacular view from the terrace, she must have known that there was no prospect at all of being able to see into Meredith’s bedroom from such a vantage point.”

“The panic she describes, Sollecito trying to break down Meredith’s door, none of this is reflected in their demeanour as described by the postal police when they arrive moments later. Neither do either of them mention any concern about Meredith to the postal police even while discussing her phones with them. The fact that Meredith’s door is locked is not mentioned until the others arrive either, though it had been when Sollecito called the Carabinieri.”

“Knox claims to have checked her own bedroom to see if there was anything missing but did not notice that her lamp, her only source of illumination, was missing. It was in Meredith’s bedroom, behind the locked door.”

“At first Sollecito had maintained that he had been sending e-mails and surfing the web but that account was quickly demolished.”

“The Report was in evidence but it is unlikely that the Court had before it an analysis of the music. The music app featured, amongst others, songs by the Seattle based punk rock band Nirvana, but more interestingly the app opens with the head banging introductory music (entitled “Stealing Fat”) to “The Fight Club” cult movie: with it’s own rendition of the iconic stabbing sound from the Hitchcock movie “Psycho” and introducing a background wailing sound. An interesting choice of music at 5.32 am in the morning and within hours of Meredith‘s brutal murder. There is clear evidence of manual interaction as some tracks are paused and then clicked through to the next.”

“One track on the app was not given any play time. This was “Polly” by Nirvanna based on the true story of the abduction, torture and rape of a 14 year old girl. The culprit is still serving time in jail.”

“Knox and Sollecito claimed that neither woke until Knox rose at 10.30 am. Not only are the two of them trapped by a blatant lie but if one’s choice of music is a reflection of mood, or to facilitate a change of mood, then their choice of music (and some of the lyrics, such as “I killed you, I’m not gonna crack”) is disturbing.”

“More than that though she also sidestepped the specific question put to her by Romanelli –

Massei - “Amanda called Romanelli, to whom she started to detail what she had noticed in the house (without, however, telling her a single word about the unanswered call made to Meredith, despite the question expressly put to her by Romanelli)”.

“Until Knox published her book the only information that was available about the 12.47 call (apart from the phone log which showed that it lasted 88 seconds) came from her mother (in her trial testimony) and her stepfather Chris Mellas. Mellas says that he interrupted the conversation between mother and daughter to tell Amanda to get out of the cottage. In her book Knox tells us (her memory now having returned) that he yelled at her but that she was “spooked” enough without that. But what had really happened to spook her? Readers will already know where I am coming from, and may think I am pushing at bit hard here, but I believe that the call to her mother was both a comfort and a rehearsal call, not simply because there had been a burglary, but because she knew a set of events was about to unfold on Romanelli’s arrival at the cottage. Would her explanation about having been there earlier for a shower be credible? Would Romanelli and subsequently the police, detect anything suspicious? The fact that her mother and stepfather already had the jitters was not a good omen.”

The testimony of Edda Mellas was as follows –

“Yes, in the first call she said that she knew that it was really early in the morning but she had called because she felt that someone had been in the house. She had spent the night at Raffaele’s and she had returned to take a shower at her house, and the main door was open. That had seemed strange to her, but the door had a strange lock and sometimes the door didn’t close properly, and when she entered the house everything seemed to be in place. Then she went to take the shower, and when she came out of the shower she noticed that there was a bit of blood but she thought that perhaps someone was having their period and had not cleaned up properly after themselves. She then went to her room and dressed and then went into the other bathroom to blow dry her hair and realized that someone had not flushed the toilet., and she thought it was strange because usually the girls flushed. Then she had to go to meet Raffaele, and she told him of these strange things in the house. Thern she tried to call one of the others who lived with them to find out something,, and had the number of another Italian roommate that was in the town, the others were there no longer and she tried to call Meredith several times but there was no response, They returned to the house, and she showed Raffaele what she had found and they realized that there was a broken window, Then at this point they began to knock on Meredith’s door trying to wake her up and when there was no answer they tried to enter her room.”

“This is a lot of information to cram in to an 88 second phone call when surely Knox’s mother must have been feeling confused, concerned, and with questions of her own. At what point did Chris interrupt and yell at her to get out of the house? Edda’s testimony is very much a reprise of Knox’s e-mail. How could Knox not have remembered such a detail packed conversation, a prelude to her e-mail, and triggered by, on the face of it, a burglary?”

“It is interesting to note that Guede, during his stay in jail in Germany, wrote (emphasis added) –

“I am asking myself how is it possible that Amanda could have slept in all that mess, and took a shower with all that blood in the bathroom and corridor.””

Posted by James Raper on 02/14/17 at 01:53 PM | #

“...the call to her mother was both a comfort and a rehearsal call” I agree. Knox vigorously refused to talk about that call. She got very defensive even on the witness stand. She turned to her catch-all tactic: deny and forget.

I believe James Raper nailed it. This call to her mom was very very dangerous territory for Amanda and she didn’t want to talk about it. Why? It was painful to her.

In this call she was facing her own mother with the veiled news of having committed murder. And as James Raper points out she had not called her mom for a month, she had pretty much made no phone calls to her mom all of October 2007 during her first idyllic weeks in Italy although the two of them may have sent email.

Knox made this radioactive phone call to Edda very shortly before the body was to be discovered. Knox dreaded it, and police came too soon.

Knox knew all heck was soon to break loose on her and she wanted to steel herself emotionally for hysterics, shouts, and doubts. She wanted to slyly warn her mother that great distress would soon engulf Edda and the entire Knox family. She wanted to trigger Edda’s mothering urge to rescue.

Only Knox knew that it was her own hand that had created the coming deluge of misery, but she kept that to herself as best she could. (We’re not sure what she told Edda, we have only her lies about the call.) She probably wanted to practice her fake story of something like “woe is me, we’ve been burglarized, I’m in danger, help me, these foreigners are not to be trusted, mom what should I do? should I move in with Raffaele for safety? send money mom, I may have to find a new place to live, should I get a knife? I have no renter’s insurance, this area is the pits, but I don’t want to come home, I was happy here (for a time), but don’t worry about me Mom, don’t worry, and if you hear further news like a girl in the room beside me has been murdered, don’t blame me, no matter what the police say, and remember to tell them I was at Raffaele’s, say that all I was doing at the cottage was getting mops and cleaning stuff and remember it was Raf’s apartment that needed cleaning, not ours, and Mom, have a nice day, mom let me handle this, I don’t need your interference but maybe your money and a new lease or you to call UW for me, I’m upset mom but maybe Raf’s folks can help me, gotta go, more later…” (not Knox’s words verbatim, but an imagined dialogue)

Perhaps the crime did not seem real to Knox until she told her mother about it; (on this call which pains her to relate, we assume she told Edda very little. She told about the broken window, spots of blood at the cottage, assumed break-in, it was a short call 88 seconds?) But we don’t know, maybe she whispered something like “I f*&!ed up bad, Mom, really bad. I was stoned, it just happened, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, it was Raf’s fault…” Who knows what Knox told Edda or why that call is so painful for Knox to tell about?

No we can’t be sure what exactly she told Edda or how much, as later Edda would lie for her on the witness stand no matter what. Knox the manipulator.

The phone call to her mother was her first big hurdle to leap. She wanted to get used to yells and shouts of disbelief or terror, or maybe recriminations about her actions.

Knox wanted to toughen her skin and get ready for how the police would react to her tall tales and fishy excuses. She probably found it very easy to lie to Edda normally, but this was a big one.

Knox and her unlucky phone: It was her own call that rang Meredith’s phone which revealed its hiding place under the bushes to Lana’s daughter. And the daughter did not answer Knox’s second call (why not?) or Knox would have been alerted to the scary fact that the phones had been found. The bungling killers couldn’t do anything “right”, not even dispose of a phone in a thick garden.

Had Lana’s daughter answered the second call, Knox probably would have lied to her just to further confuse matters, Knox being a pathological liar. Knox loved to be a “minaccia” or menace. True, she’s a menace, a threat and a danger who was laughing at the police station with Raffaele about the word that means threat or menace. Minaccia, something that will cause evil or injury, something dangerous, minaccia. Mostly she liked the word because in English it begins with the “me” sound.

James Raper, thank you for making a great amount of detailed information much better organized. It shows the pattern of lies over matters small and large, and how Knox’s email after the murder to all her folks in Seattle, was one ginormous lie, much like the stuff she is now churning out for the Seattle newspaper.

She’ll never prevail in court for compensation as a wounded innocent.

Seeing your long list of her lies even in condensed form and the various falsehoods Knox acted out or spoke or wrote, we can only wonder how she walks free today.

Posted by Hopeful on 02/15/17 at 01:04 AM | #

Incredible that they got out of prison considering clear facts presented by James Raper. It is perhaps not surprising, given how much they got away with, that guilty Raffaele Sollecito thought he could push his luck with his compensation claim.

Posted by DavidB on 02/15/17 at 12:38 PM | #

Exactly DavidB.

How I wish we could have some professional investigators on this case.Maybe even a small team of investigative journalists, who could identify where the crookedness is coming from.

I would suggest looking at Sollecito’s legal team first off.

Posted by Deathfish on 02/15/17 at 03:53 PM | #

Hi Deathfish

I believe media investigations are almost certainly a coming thing. NOTHING posted here simply scrolls and is lost, it may seem like we got the whole picture a long time ago but James Raper and KrissyG and our PMF and Wiki friends show that no we didnt, its still becoming clear.

Press releases to show all that Netflix lied by omission about are the “big next thing”. They left out for example all of the above.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/16/17 at 04:34 PM | #

Tomorrow could be another milestone in our comparisons of legal systems which Chimera etc wrote do much about. Italian lawyers have never tried THIS.

http://www.alternet.org/there-growing-movement-across-legal-community-plan-nationwide-walkout-against-trump

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/16/17 at 09:25 PM | #

Lovely reporting as always. Sollecito will crack eventually then the entire house of cards will fall. Guede is waiting in the wings. I just wonder if anybody has offered him money to tell what he knows.

Eventually this will all come out. There is no escape because lies always find their way to the surface. I’m just surprised that Knox hasn’t gotten pregnant as a safety card just in case. I doubt she will anyway she is too scared and too much of a narcissist to let that happen. Is there any news on her latest victim? Also is there any news on Grandmother Huff who mortgaged her house? Yes it’s coming unglued and I for one will celebrate when it does.

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 02/17/17 at 03:33 AM | #

Hi Graham, i read somewhere here in EU that the grandmother Huff passed away. But it is not sure- I read it only one time in a boulevard newspapers.

Posted by Elisa on 02/17/17 at 07:05 PM | #

Hello Peter,

Yes absolutely.
I really do believe there is a genuine expose here for any serious journalists. I remember being mocked the first time I posted that the case had been bent but here we are: I think the sands of time are narrowing the beam to the source of the crookedness now.

Of course, all people like us know this now and have done so for some time and going back to the beginning, I couldn’t have imagined the great work that has since been done for Meredith and her family, and the course of justice for that matter.

As always, time is on our side.
The great healer will heal and for that I am sure.

Posted by Deathfish on 02/18/17 at 02:10 AM | #

Peter Gill is trying to pass himself off as an expert on the Meredith Kercher case:

http://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973(16)30033-3/fulltext#sec0065

He mistakenly believes the case hinged solely on the knife, bra clasp and Luminol footprints. He’s also mindlessly regurgitated some FOA myths.

Posted by The Machine on 02/18/17 at 05:23 PM | #

News:  Rudy Guede’s lawyers have lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court re his request for a review turned down by Florence.

He is going to be on leave in Perugia, hosted by his old teacher, according to this article:

Rudy Hermann Guede is back in Perugia. It ‘happened last December when, taking advantage of one of the special permits of which have benefited in recent months, was a guest of his elementary school teacher who has never ceased to take care of him. In addition, according to the findings, the boy, the only definitively convicted for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, will return for another term in Perugia shortly.

The appeal to the Supreme Court Meanwhile, his lawyers Thomas Pietrocarlo and Monica Grossi, after the Court of Appeal of Florence had branded as inadmissible their request filed for a new trial, filed a petition in the Supreme Court. The Supreme court judges may then cancel with the order issued from Florence, or confirm it, putting an end for ever in the judicial history of Rudy Guede who has always said he is innocent.

http://tuttoggi.info/rudy-permesso-premio-perugia-gli-avvocati-vanno-cassazione-la-revisione/381739/

Posted by KrissyG on 02/19/17 at 02:32 AM | #

Link to Gill’s analysis: http://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-49731630033-3/fulltext#sec0065

Posted by Ergon on 02/19/17 at 06:38 AM | #

Gosh!
Who is Peter Gill?
How much does he cost? Anyway…

Posted by Deathfish on 02/19/17 at 06:45 AM | #

He’s a semi-retired some time lecturer in genetics with a ‘senior -ahem! - crush’ on Amanda Knox - feels he has to charge in on his white horse to rescue her from all those bad dudes.

Posted by KrissyG on 02/19/17 at 04:50 PM | #

PS I should add, the above comment is tongue-in-cheek.  Of course, we should welcome reasoned debate.  It is just infuriating M-B should accept all this stuff in retrospect, without Mr Gill being cross-examined by anyone, and Mr Gill not declaring his vested interest (for example, in book sales).

Posted by KrissyG on 02/19/17 at 06:54 PM | #

Hi KrissyG of course I have heard of this character before and I agree we should welcome all reasoned debate.
On first glimpse of the doc it seems mostly babble we have seen generated by these people before with the omissions being the most interesting.
I was just wondering how these people seem to appear at random from out of obscurity - what drives then exactly?

Posted by Deathfish on 02/20/17 at 02:14 AM | #

A quick aside on growth if I may. The US is moving dramatically toward a wrong model guaranteed to disappoint all Americans, just wait long enough. The EC is pushing Italy to sort of follow suit.

On the NY Times site someone posted a comment (which got lots of recommends) to the effect that very slow growth is the norm and wealth redistribution the one tool left. Not true. I posted a response.

“Lower rates of growth are the norm” Paul, this is actually a myth. There are solid reasons why mature systems are locking up and why so many elements of the economy are at the top of their particular innovation S curve where additional value is sparse. “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Christensen is THE book to read. The way to faster growth is to spot untapped value and put new systems in place. Only a small fraction of any mature economy is doing this at any one time, but almost everybody including struggling rural and rustbelt whites can have a role. Everybody should be shown how to “see” value and systems and learn from everybody else. Get value spotted and new systems being brought up to speed and capital will always arrive. In fact a major problem is TOO MUCH capital looking for performance and quickly trampling on every golden egg.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/21/17 at 04:52 PM | #
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