The Civil Case Of Knox v Lifetime - Umbria 24 TV Video Of Arrivals Today At The Courthouse

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I just read on abc that the Lifetime people have not acknowledged their summons and were not present….

On a side note, I found it disturbing that the abc “news” channel is openly supporting the cause of a convicted murderer (whose cause, to the best of my knowledge, no recognized and respectable charity for the falsely accused has taken up - or even acknowledged)!

The video on the side (1 min in) says ENOUGH - LET THEM GO and puts down the name of two pro Knox websites!

http://abcnews.go.com/International/amanda-knox-lifetime-movie-blocked-tv-internet/story?id=13214549

Hi Giselle. Yeah its actually a paid-for website ad. The second one in. It sure does resemble the news “content” though.

ABC and CBS are in neck-and-neck competition to win the Holy Grail in this case: a long interview with Amanda Knox. It is distorting all of their coverage.

“I was terrified because I didn’t know what to do anymore!” said Amanda in court. This, poignantly, in the video Giselle refers to above.

Her words are spoken dramatically with teary voice, but the drama is Amanda’s own. This is a moment out of her real-life, as we say, & the very words for which the video would ask our sympathy are double-edged.

True enough, as James Raper reminds us, that Amanda has made no honest confession of guilt. Nonetheless, she does confess here (involuntarily & without thinking of it from this point of view) that she experienced “terror” in the realization that she “didn’t know what to do anymore!”

Her lies had failed to win release: she was caught. And caught she remains. It is still being urged by a female journalist favorable to Amanda that she is innocent until proven guilty simply because now her appeal is being heard.

She is not innocent & stands presently convicted but under Italian law she is granted opportunity of a second trial in which to offer fresh evidence (if she has any) or demonstrations of error or else deliberate wrong-doing in the earlier arrest & trial. Failing that her sentence will be confirmed. Nor has it ever yet been lifted.

One thing accured to me while reading an old Reuter’s article about Knox.

Meredith’s room was locked! The murderer would have had to know about the girls having keys to their rooms. Filomena’s room was not locked and nor was Amanda’s - so this would not have been immediately obvious to an intruder (burglary gone wrong scenario). Again Knox’s name rings here! Rudy would just want to run away and get away asap! Which is what he did according to neighbors who heard the scream and the running feet…

I am sure this point has probably been discussed here - but I havent come across it and I was wondering if any one else agrees?

Also I still dont seem to understand what happened to the guy that bumped into Rudy as he was running away? Did he see anyone else… sorry if this is obvious, but I still dont get it!?

Extremely odd (to say the least) that Amanda Knox looked almost deliriously happy everyday during her trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher but now seems rather serious and downcast while being escorted into the courtroom for her own action to have the plug pulled on the Lifetime movie in Italy.

Giselle,

Thank you for bringing this up again. The topic, for me, is still of interest.

Rudy’s DNA (or was it fingerprint?) was found on Meredith’s handbag, so he could have come across her bedroom key or keys there, assuming that they were not just lying around anyway.

However I don’t see it as a natural instinct for him to have locked her room had he been a lone wolf.

Why would Rudy take the trouble (in his panic) to pause, think, then lock Meredith’s room (when he knew that she was dying and inactive), but then leave the front door open, according to Amanda, had it been him on his own?

The front door didn’t shut (or open) without the key being used (I assume from this that if there was a latch it was broken), something which Rudy would not have known until he encountered this.

Ascertaining the means of getting out and making my escape would be my first thought. Picking up a set of keys and locking Meredith in would not have been my first thought when I can assume that I just go to the front door and unlatch it.

So getting out would have been his first problem unless of course the door had obligingly been left open (in which case he had wasted a lot of time and effort breaking in) or Meredith had left her keys in the door. Had the latter been the case and on the assumption that Meredith probably kept her bedroom key on the same ring as her front door key, he would then have had to have had the forethought to have returned to Meredith’s room to lock her door rather than, as you or I would have done, use the key to open the front door and run. Had the front door not been open or Meredith’s keys in it, or had he not picked them up before he got there, there would have then been a frantic search for them in order to get out and it doesn’t seem likely that with the time wasted he would then have remembered to lock the bedroom door. In both scenarios he would have been tracking blood back and forth.

Had he taken the keys to the front door with him and having already locked the bedroom door it is reasonable to assume that he would have wanted to lock the front door behind him. So much careful thought and activity for a lone wolf whose victim had delivered an ear splitting scream in the middle of the night. And if he had locked it who opened it but whose story was that the door was already open when she returned the next morning?

Of course he might have been deliberate and careful about locking the bedroom door first but then forgot or didn’t bother to lock the front door. Which part of that scenario is a lone wolf Rudy? The Rudy who went disco dancing because he was in all such a fuzz.

It is natural to assume - the odds being highly likely - that it was Rudy who bumped into the couple, but it has also to be remembered that no identification or useful description was forthcoming from them. Yes one would think they might have seen or heard something else but this all depends upon the timing of events and it is my belief that the encounter occurred as Rudy was making his way to the basket ball court to meet up with AK and RS before and not after the attack on Meredith.

After all the couple did notice the broken down car and the pick up truck and I am sure the attack was after they had gone. Micheli I think got the time of the attack all wrong. Massei placed it much later.

Parallel noted (to the above.) Late post.

“I was terrified because I didn’t know what to do anymore!” said Amanda in court [poignantly, with teary voice, & yet] the very words for which the video would ask our sympathy are double-edged…”
As I go on to show.

Here’s another case taken from current news, Guardian article on Knox quoting “Chris Mellas, Knox’s stepfather [who] said: “It couldn’t go any better today.”

Of course, it couldn’t go any better today [testimony of Antonio Curatolo] given everything we know about Amanda—yet clearly that’s NOT what Chris Mellas meant to say.

And one could argue that elliptical statements should not be taken in a sense which was never intended. A valid argument, certainly, but it quite misses my deeper point.

Fact is (a) that the statement as given (we assume accuracy of quotation) ALLOWS a secondary & subversive meaning to come into view.

(b) A deep psychological law is at work here, namely, that in such a case as this (of overwhelming guilt & transparent knowledge of guilt) an involuntary confession may occur.

Our speech not only reveals our thought but also betrays it. There is an underlying human urge, of great strength, in which we seek to merge ourselves in community.

Apropos Amanda: her associated photo in the Guardian article shows a well-dressed young woman smiling (& posing) in evident satisfaction.

This is not the released smile, the broad smile of earlier days in court. Something a little held back here, yes, but she shows not the least trace of remorse, of awful recollection, of present anxiety.

She quite expects to pull through this after all, thanks largely to Curt Knox & his relentless endeavors.  And when at last the Supreme Court confirms her sentence (as I must believe it will) she may come to feel that her family has misled & betrayed her. It would be the first glimmering of honest insight, should she come to that.

Re my comment above on locks and keys.

Does anyone know what sort of lock was on Meredith’s door? If a standard yale lock then a few further thoughts occur.

1. For the door to be open when shut the latch would have to be kept clicked back. It would therefore be obvious to Rudy that to lock the door behind him all he had to do was leave shutting the door with the latch released.

2. As mentioned above he did not know that there would not be a similar arrangement on the front door thus facilitating an easy escape without keys once he had so locked the bedroom door. However had he been let in by Meredith ( a most unlikely hypothesis) he might have noticed the problem with the front door.

3. Indeed, why would he otherwise, or in any event, think that the bedroom door was lockable given that none of the rooms inside the cottage were locked? Of course having gone through her handbag and if it was a different sort of lock there would be a different sort of key from the others, which would stand out, unless the front door lock was also not a yale style lock, in which case AK makes too much of it’s peculiarity” for me.

4. For these reasons (being let in by Meredith or it not being a yale lock seeming to be the only exclusions) the acquisition of Meredith’s keys hardly seems to be important.

5. An interesting scenario might have occurred had he shut and locked the bedroom door without keys because then would he not have locked himself into the Cottage?

Again it might easily have not been such a lock but I have not seen any information anywhere as to what sort of lock was on her door, or the front door. My tortured theorizing stems from this lack of information. I’m having a bad time here. Please someone shut me up.

The interesting thing is that Meredith’s locked door is yet another pointer, amongst all the others at the scene of the crime on the day after the murder, that point to AK’s involvement.

James,

Thank you for your response -  exactly like yourself, I dont understand why he wouldnt just run, even if he had found the room keys! If he was trying to delay the discovery of the body, wouldnt he make sure that the house door was shut!? Any passerby may become curious of a door that hangs open in the wind…

As for his DNA on Meredith’s bag + the missing set of keys, it should be safe to assume that the attacker took them (I think it was Micheli who hypothesised that this would leave no chance for the wounded Meredith to get away! - in conjunction with her stolen cell phones). Its also curious that BOTH Meredith’s phone were taken - are these all just pure strokes of luck or did the killer know she had two phones and went looking for them? Forgive my side-tracking here - but did she always carry both phones with her?

And as you point out - if he has broken in through the window - how does he know that he doesnt need keys to get out of the house?!

I dont believe that the forensic evidence indicates any frantic search for anything, so everything the attacker wanted s/he knew where to get or it was very obvious!

All this implicates Knox - she knew where to get what and the what went wheres of the house! She knew their door was broken and she knew that no one would necessarily freak out about Meredith’s door being locked (had the police not shown up with the cells, things may have played out very different). Meredith was due a trip to England shortly, maybe Knox was banking on the flat-mates believing she had already gone…

Thanks for your thoughts! My real opinion is that, though any of the evidence - discounting the DNA - can be easily seen as a coincidence, unlucky timing and human mistakes etc - it is not reasonable to assume that all these unfortunate coincidences and events point the finger to an innocent Knox. She is guilty - the devil being in the details!

The only reason for Meredith’s door to have been locked from the outside and the key missing is because Knox wanted the door to be locked.

According to the scenario Knox engineered, she came back to the flat, discovered the “burglary” and called her flatmate, who told her to call the cops. She makes the two fake “concerned” calls to Meredith’s phones (she lets the phones ring only for a second or two because she knows Meredith can’t answer).

The cops then show up and find Meredith’s door locked, Knox says that’s normal (we know that’s a lie). The cops then are the ones who discover Meredith’s body - who according to Knox’s scenario has been raped. Knox fakes surprise.

Knox had to lock that door (and she knew the door had a lock, remember) because otherwise this scenario would not have worked, she would have had to be the one to “discover” Meredith’s body and there would not have been the distance from the guilt she hoped to create.

The whole setup was created by someone who is a master manipulator and liar - but was in part her downfall as the extent of the lies and attempts at deception unraveled.

Final update on the Lifetime civil case for now. It looks like this case is dying on the vine of its own absurdity. 

As we said, the suits were filed before anyone had actually seen the TV movie and Lifetime had already said they would not air it in Italy. And it was a mixed bag - probably more points favored Amanda Knox than made out she is worse than she is - in fact, did any points make out she is worse than she is?

Lifetime didnt even bother to send a team to the hearing and were not represented in court. That at least implied that at the July 4 hearing the court could be questioning its own jurisdiction.

Very interesting and suggestive of secret collusion at some point that Curt Knox and Edda Mellas did not file a suit in the only place where Lifetime would have had to respond - here in the United States.

The demand for damages in Perugia was reduced by the defense team from up in the many millions to three million Euros or whatever the court might feel appropriate. And the Sollecito team have made no mention of their New York or Perugia suits for weeks.

Now that I have viewed Kermit’s Power Point floor layout I can categorically state that the lock on Meredith’s door wasn’t a yale. Sorry! A waste of theorizing.

Mr Maresca, the lawyer appointed for Meredith’s family, is quoted in a Time interview as saying the TV movie, which largely follows the Massei report, got important things right:

*******

Asked what he thought of the movie, Maresca, the Kercher family’s lawyer answered: “It’s obviously ill-timed and out of place when there’s an appeals trial going on.” But, given the importance of public opinion, does it help the case against Knox? “Sure,” says Maresca. “It completely reconstructs the events as we’ve always sustained they happened.”

Where next:

Or to next entry Giordano Supreme Court Report On Final Appeal By Rudy Guede

Or to previous entry The Civil Case Of Knox v Lifetime Will Be Considered By The Perugia Courts On July 4