First Excerpt From Will Savive’s “Study Abroad Murder” The Best Book Yet On The Hard Evidence
Will Savive is a New York area criminologist, concerning whom a reviewer on the book’s Amazon page said “Savive is quickly becoming a juggernaut of the true crime industry.”
This looks to be the best book yet on the hard evidence in the case, and on what people actually said both before trial and throughout trial. Will writes just like a criminologist (“just the facts ma’am”) and he has little interest in the absurd notions that Italian professionals fell down on the job or pulled off an enormous cover-up.
This first excerpt, a proof copy from “The Study Abroad Murder”, is about the arrest of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito at Perugia’s central police station on the night of 5-6 November 2007.
While police questioned Sollecito, Knox waited in a side room. Policewoman Lorena Zugarini walked into the room to check on Knox and caught her doing cartwheels and the splits. Zugarini told Knox that it was “not the right place for such activities.”
At around 11:30p.m., Inspector Chief of Perugia police’s narcotics unit, Rita Ficarra, came out of the lift into the waiting room of the city’s Flying Squad on the third floor of the police station and witnessed Knox “showing off her gymnastic ability,” turning cartwheels and doing back bends. This angered the inspector, and she scolded Knox, telling her “This is the police station, not a dance theater!”
Knox and Ficarra began talking about the night of the murder, and Ficarra told Knox that the answers she and Raffaele had given don’t add up and are filled with several contradictions. Ficarra tried to explain to Knox, “If you tell me a lie one time, that is comprehensible, but if you lie again””even if it is a small lie””it makes you less credible.” One reason for the officer’s warning was that Knox had originally told police that she had not smoked cannabis, but then said that she had, according to Rita.
Ficarra then decided that since Knox was already present, she would like her to detail a list of people that had visited the house in the two months since she’s been there. Knox agrees, takes out her cell phone, and begins to go through the list of names. “˜He’s been there; he hasn’t been there, etc.’
Rita begins taking notes, but soon realizes that she needs an interpreter. When the interpreter arrived shortly after, Knox again began giving Ficarra names of people who had visited the flat, including “a South African man” she had met at a party in the flat underneath hers. Knox said that she didn’t know his name or phone number, and had never seen him again after that night (Rudy Guede).
At this point, Knox willingly hands over her phone to Ficarra, who begins scrolling through Knox’s text messages and asking her who these people were and when she had met them””she wanted to know everything: “Peter, Juve, Spiros, Shaggy”¦” Ficarra continued, rattling-off names and quizzing Knox. Inspector Lorena Zugarini enters the room and begins observing silently.
Suddenly, the head of the Perugia homicide unit, Monica Napoleoni, enters the room and says, “He [Sollecito] doesn’t cover her anymore, so you’d better ask Amanda again her whereabouts on the evening of the murder.”
It turns out that Raffaele Sollecito had changed his story, claiming that he was with Knox only until 9:00p.m., on the night of the murder. Sollecito claims that he and Knox left the cottage at 6:00p.m., at which time they went into the centre. “At 9:00p.m., I went home alone and Amanda said that she was going to Le Chic because she wanted to meet some friends,” Sollecito told police.
“We said goodbye and I went home, I rolled myself a spliff [Marijuana cigarette] and made some dinner.” Sollecito goes on to say that Knox returned to his flat at around 1:00a.m., at which time the couple went to bed.
Amanda Knox’s alibi had abruptly evaporated! As Ficarra continued through Knox’s messages, she came to a text that Knox had sent to her boss, Patrick Lumumba. Ficarra shows her the message and asks, “Who is this person?” Ficarra believed that the message read like a date””to meet up later that night. “Did you go out with him that night?” Ficarra asked.
Unexpectedly and without warning, Knox put her head in her hands, started shaking her head, as tears streamed down from her eyes. “He’s bad, he’s bad”¦”””Amanda says as if she is in a trance””“He’s the murderer…I can hear him in Meredith’s room…I can hear him killing Meredith!”
Knox was a waitress at the bar Le Chic, which was owned by a Congolese man by the name of Diya Patrick Lumumba [37]. Lumumba was also a musician who was married to a Polish woman named Ola, with whom he had a baby boy named David.
On the night of the murder Knox said that she had originally sent him a text message asking him if he wanted her to come into work that night. Patrick sent a reply back at 8:19p.m., saying that she was not needed. Knox then replied back to Lumumba at 8.35p.m., “Certo. Ci vediamo piu` tardi. Buona serata!”
There has been many discrepancies as to what this statement actually means in Italian, or what Knox meant by the statement; particularly the “più tardi” in the sentence. A rough translation of this phrase in English is “Certainly. See you later. Good evening!” However, “più tardi” in Italian actually indicates a schedule or an appointment.
This expression in Italian assumes that after a lapse of time, with many actions in between, we will meet up later. If you use the words “più tardi” it is assumed that you are going to meet-up with someone on the same day or evening, not tomorrow or at another time. It is possible to suppose that Knox did not understand the language well enough and this is just a simple misunderstanding, but police did not give her the benefit of the doubt; axiomatically because she had already stated that Lumumba was the murderer.
Once Knox had made this accusation, police immediately notified the Pubblico Ministero (Public Prosecutor) of Perugia, Giuliano Mignini, who gives the order to “Stop.”
Questioning for the evening was then suspended at 1:45a.m., as is prescribed by Italian law””in articles 386 & 566 of the Italian Codice di Procedura Penale [Code of Criminal Procedure] (CPP). Knox signs a one-page statement that recounts her new story, and she is then informed that her status has officially changed from witness to suspect.
Italian law differs from the law here in the United States in several respects (civil law system vs. common law system), but many aspects are strikingly similar. Italian criminal law, which is codified in the CPP, states that Defense counsel’s presence is mandatory during the interrogation of the accused. One way around this, however, is to not officially change the status from witness to a suspect until after getting a sufficient amount of information out of her/him during questioning or to get a confession before changing the status. This is a common police “˜trick,’ per say, in Italy as well as in America.
Italian law does, however, have several differences. According to a provision introduced in 1978, it is not compulsory for the defense counsel to be present when the continuation of an investigation requires the immediate and urgent interrogation of a suspect. The statements made by the suspect, however, may not be minuted for use in judicial proceedings.
Basically, this can be seen as a loop-hole that gives Italian police more leeway to do as they see fit in order to extract what information they need from a suspect. In Knox’s case, she obviously did not have a lawyer as she was not even called into the police station, let alone was she under the impression that she would be arrested at some point during that evening.
In any event, it was Knox that allegedly waived her right to an attorney at that time, according to police. Nevertheless, the absence of a defense attorney during interrogation does not guarantee that the information provided by the suspect will be admissible in court. This decision will later be up to the two judges and six jury members upon trial in Italy, or the Italian Supreme Court.
The officers were completely astonished and dumbfounded by Knox’s admittance. Here was a girl who hadn’t even been asked to come in for questioning, and has not only declared to have been at the house during the time of the murder, but identified the killer!
Mignini headed over to the questura (police headquarters) to witness and question Knox further. Once he arrived””at 3:30a.m.”” Knox repeats her story for Mignini, but this time she goes into great detail… The session is halted at 5:45a.m., at which time Knox signs a five-page statement detailing the events of the interrogation.
In the report, regarding the text message that Knox sent to Lumumba, police changed the text to read: “Ci vediamo.”(“See you later”). Mignini later used this statement to persuade the judge that Knox and Lumumba met up just before the murder. This information was then fed to the press, who reported the half-text “See you later” (by no fault of their own). An example of this is the story in the London Times on 13 November 2007, entitled, “Meredith Kercher murder: why the timings are critical.” It wasn’t until Lumumba’s subsequent release that the full message was correctly reported to the public.
In any case, police theorized from the text message, and Knox’s statement, that the two met-up shortly there afterwards at the basketball court at Piazza Grimana before heading to the cottage. Shortly after signing the report, Knox is formally arrested then taken for breakfast. Sollecito had also been formally arrested and retained.
Meanwhile, a police task force had already been assembled and sent to arrest the dangerous murderer, Patrick Lumumba. At 6:30a.m., Patrick Lumumba sat in his fourth-floor apartment when he heard his doorbell ringing. Before he could even respond he heard a woman’s voice outside demanding that he open the door…
With Lumumba in custody, the procession headed to Perugia’s police station with sirens blaring. The worst was yet to come for Patrick, who then had to sit through a ten-hour interrogation…
“You did it, you did it!” Patrick was confused and scared, and police would not even tell him what he had just been arrested for. It was only after several hours that police showed Patrick a picture of Meredith’s lifeless body. It was only after seeing the picture that Patrick had made the connection between his arrest and Meredith’s death. “You think I killed Meredith?” Patrick uttered. Lumumba had been handing out flyers publicizing Meredith Kercher’s candlelit vigil just one day earlier…
After Lumumba’s arrest, Knox calls over Ficarra and asks her for a pen and paper. Knox says to her, “I want to give you a gift.” Knox then proceeds to write a two page statement, confirming what she said earlier; but this time she posed her accusations against Lumumba and her presence during the murder as a “vision.”
Her statement is legally known as a voluntary, spontaneous statement, referred to as “˜The Memoir’ (Memorial or Two Page Note). When she is done she hands the memoir to Ficarra and says that it will help them in case they have some doubts. Little did Knox know at the time, but it would be the most damaging ink she would ever inscribe!
Key points in Knox’s statement (”˜The Memoir’):
“This is very strange, I know, but really what happened is as confusing to me as it is to everyone else.”
Knox starts off claiming that she was at Sollecito’s flat “smoking marijuana, having sex,” and “might even have fallen asleep.”
“The next thing I remember was waking up the morning of Friday November 2nd around 10am and I took a plastic bag to take back my dirty cloths to go back to my house.”
As she goes on, she begins to tell a different story of what might have happened, in which she claims her boss, Patrick Lumumba, was probably the murder. According to this version of events Knox met Patrick Lumumba at around 9:00p.m., on the night of the murder at the basketball court in Piazza Grimana then went to her house. This is significant, because a homeless man later testified that he saw Knox on that very basketball court at around that time.
“In my mind I saw Patrik in flashes of blurred images. I saw him near the basketball court. I saw him at my front door. I saw myself cowering in the kitchen with my hands over my ears because in my head I could hear Meredith screaming”¦these things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things that happened or are just dreams my head has made to try to answer the questions in my head and the questions I am being asked.”
The following statement is telling because Knox does not rule out the possibility that there may be evidence against her at the crime scene. Here she contradicts and back-tracks as she tries to talk her way out of trouble.
“The police have told me that they have hard evidence that places me at the house, my house, at the time of Meredith’s murder. I don’t know what proof they are talking about, but if this is true, it means I am very confused and my dreams must be real.”
In his account to police that night, Sollecito tried to distance himself from the murder, telling police that Knox asked him to lie for her and say that she was with him the whole night.
“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,” Sollecito told police
Knox responds to this by writing, “I also NEVER asked him to lie for me. This is absolutely a lie”¦What does he [Sollecito] have to hide? I don’t think he killed Meredith.”
Knox then acknowledges that her story seems far fetched, yet she stands by both of her stories, each contradicting the other.
“I also know that the fact that I can’t fully recall the events that I claim took place at Raffaele’s home during the time that Meredith was murdered is incriminating. And I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik, but I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me that what I said before, that I stayed at Raffaele’s house.”
Knox reaffirms that she is not sure what she was doing the night before the murder.
“I’m very confused at this time. My head is full of contrasting ideas and I know I can be frustrating to work with for this reason. But I also want to tell the truth as best I can. Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith’s death, even though it is contrasting, are the best truth that I have been able to think.”
Knox reaffirms that she is not sure what she was doing the night before the murder, and that Patrick may have been the killer.
“In these flashbacks that I’m having, I see Patrik as the murderer, but the way the truth feels in my mind, there is no way for me to have known because I don’t remember FOR SURE if I was at my house that night.”
Knox then asks herself a very puzzling question, which is basically like saying that she was not there unless they have proof that she was, and if so then she doesn’t remember.
“Is the evidence proving my pressance [sic] at the time and place of the crime reliable? If so, what does this say about my memory? Is it reliable?”
It wasn’t until 5:30p.m., that day””still handcuffed and bruised””that Patrick was informed of the evidence against him.
Police showed Patrick the hand written statement of Amanda Knox accusing him of being Meredith’s killer. It was only then that Patrick had realized just how mad Knox was with him for considering firing her. Patrick filled-up with rage and contempt toward Knox, but continued to keep himself calm and composed in front of police. After Patrick was fingerprinted and his blood was taken, he sat in a holding cell awaiting his first hearing.
Police then turned their investigation to Raffaele Sollecito’s flat on Corso Garibaldi. Police entered the premises looking for a pair of shoes that matched any of the bloody prints left at the crime scene, and a possible murder weapon.
Armondo Finzi, an assistant in Perugia PD’s organized crime unit, entered the home and immediately noticed a “strong smell of bleach.” As police beagn the inspection of the flat, Mr. Finzi opened a drawer in the kitchen and noticed a shiny knife lying on top of the silverware tray. The Marietti knife with a 6 ½ inch stainless steel blade, was the first knife that he saw and his investigative intuition led him to believe that it might be the murder weapon.
Officer Finzi grabbed the knife, with gloved hands, and placed it into an envelope and taped it shut, and then placed it into a folder. No other knife was taken into evidence. Back at police headquarters, homicide unit captain, Stefano Gubbiotto, removed the knife from the envelope””with gloved hands””and placed it into a cardboard box, and it was scheduled to be sent to Rome for further analysis.
During the search, police also found a pair of Sollecito’s sneakers (Nike size 42½) that they announced was a perfect match with the footprint left at the crime scene. Police also discovered a receipt in Sollecito’s flat for cleaning products from a local supermarket, which they claimed included bleach. This bleach, police then believed, was used to clean the knife found in his apartment.
Police also examined Sollecito’s car (an Audi) for any traces of blood on the pedals, but found nothing. They confiscated Sollecito’s collection of violent Japanese comic books as well. Knox, Sollecito, and Lumumba all spent the next two days and nights in isolation””behind bars in Capanne prison, about a ten-minute drive from Perugia.
_______________
From The Study Abroad Murder by Will Savive
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Hi Peter. Thank you for this post with an extract from Will Savive’s book, The Study Abroad Murder, which I will now purchase.
The excerpt is interesting in itself and adds some ‘flesh’ to the accounts of the arrests and interrogations - especially Patrick Lumumba’s horrific ordeal orchestrated by Amanda Knox. I have to say however that the account of his arrest; the number of plain clothed and armed police in attendance at his home and the fact that they did not inform him of the charge against him for 11 hours (???!) does put the police in a bad light in my mind. Is this normal practice in any country?
At the same time it demonstrates the utterly self-absorbed callousness of Amanda Knox herself. A Callousness that sits, waits and observes before It coolly requests pen and paper in order to further twist the knife in Patrick’s back (please forgive the reference to knife).
I began following this case and its psychology at the outset as, still home in the UK at the time, it was all over the news in lurid, red-topped detail and the circumstances of the case as they were reported were almost incomprehensible given the backgrounds of the protagonists.
Even after reading all the news articles over the past 3+ years, the posts and comments on this site and following the controversies that rage on and on, the cruel absurdity of the crime and the incessant and obstinate refusal to accept facts by the Knox supporters and family continue to perplex me as a human being.
It is impossible to imagine the unexpected terror and utter sense of betrayal and ultimate loneliness that Meredith must have experienced on that night. One can only hope that her secure sense of ‘being’ (having come from a loving family) may have - in some way - protected her in a fundamental sense.
RS’s refusal to speak after his initial contradictory statements throws into even sharper relief the understanding (for me) that the MOST culpable is Amanda Knox and I wait for the result of the appeals in the hope that there will be - in this small, insufficient measure at least - real justice for Meredith Kercher and her desperately grieving family.
P.S. Just to qualify - by ‘any country’ I am referring to western countries. As someone who has lived in other, non - ‘first-world’, cultures, I am naturally only too aware of the injustice suffered by millions.
P.P.S. The unpleasantness has now spilled onto the Amazon site. This is viral:
Hi Will,
Diya Lumumba has repeatedly denied that he was physically mistreated or verbally abused by the police in interviews with Italian newspapers and on Italian television programmes. He blamed the wrong report in The Daily Mail on mistranslation and misinterpretation of his words.
I have waited for this to come out and will order it today. How evil would one have to be to do this crime and then accuse and implicate a completely innocent man. That evil is Knox. And then we ask ourselves who raised such evil? And then we see how they conduct themselves and kinda get an idea of how this all fits
4/2/11
Dr. Anderson, you defend Dr. Sollecito’s son and you mention professionals closing ranks.
Hey Machine,
So are we to believe that everything in the article was fabricated or just these statements…
“They hit me over the head and yelled ‘dirty black.’â€
“I was questioned by five men and women, some of whom punched and kicked me,†he claims. “They forced me on my knees against the wall and said I should be in America where I would be given the electric chair for my crime. All they kept saying was, ‘You did it, you did it.’â€
This article supplied great detail about Lumumba’s ordeal, clearly the best one on his experience. Maybe he had reasons—unknown to us—for retracting these statements later?! In any event, let’s think of it logically and with these quotes above. You have a black man accused of savagely murdering a 20something female—accused by another 20something female (white with blonde hair and blue eyes) who claims to have witnessed the slaughter—and he is vehemently denying involvement (which surely angered police). He was interrogated for 10 hours and giving police nothing. I think it’s safe to assume that they didn’t roll out the red carpet for him and serve him tea and crumpets. Add to this that the interview was given while Lumumba was fresh out of prison and no doubt in an emotional state and it makes these statements more believable than what he said later, after he had time to ponder the affects of how these statements would be seen.
As far as Knox’s allegations that she was “cuffed on the back of the head twice,†I think this is a clear fabrication—and I think that Lumumba’s treatment has no bearing on how Knox was treated, contrary to what the Huffington Post stated (clearly just to sell newspapers). She was only questioned for about 2 hours before confessing and the questioning wasn’t even intense (i.e. she wasn’t even called into the questioning). Furthermore, Sollecito made no claims of police abuse (physically), and it would be more likely that he would be physically abused than a female, particularly because he was called into the questioning (they were mainly focused in on him at that time). I think at that time the police were more baffled about what was transpiring and still questioning what the couple’s roles were in the murder, but they “knew†what role Lumumba played, per say.
I wonder how the knoxophiles will respond to this book…I look forward to reading this
@willsavive,
By extension AK was fresh out of “interrogation” which makes her statement on the morning of the 6th November that she had been cuffed twice round the head more credible than her repetition of it in court.
Come on get real everyone. If she hadn’t been cuffed then someone brushed brusquely past her so that she thought she had been hit. But frankly, so what?
James,
You seem to be holding Knox and Lumumba’s credibility in the same regard. I’m going to have to say this is a huge difference. One night in jail is a very sobering experience, and Knox probably would have realized the gravity of her statements pretty quickly—in that she probably realized, in her isolation, that her statements would likely seal her fate; so time to retract or skew. The best way to do so is to relieve one’s self of responsibility: “I said these things because I was hit, not because they are true.â€
This kind of thing happens frequently. For instance, Joran Van der Sloot retracted his confession in a similar fashion saying that he was intimidated by police. “I was very scared and confused during the interrogations and wanted to get away. In my blind panic, I signed everything, but didn’t even know what it said.â€
If she was hit, I would assume that it occurred after she had already made her damning declarations and police were trying to get more out of her or at least get her to stop with her confusing speech (“I don’t knows†and “I don’t remembersâ€). Moreover, police would have been angry after these declarations because of her lies up to that point. Many of Knox’s statements appear to be mixed with a certain percentage of truth, fabrication, and memory loss.
As I said, her interrogation, up until the point that Raffaele sold her out, was really not an interrogation at all, as they say; it was very informal, as she hadn’t even been called in for questioning. James, you very well may be correct, but this is simply my opinion. The type of conjectural statement made by me here is not in the book, because people should make up their own minds on what they think occurred, being supplied with only the necessary facts and circumstances.
“Police also discovered a receipt in Sollecito’s flat for cleaning products from a local supermarket, which they claimed included bleach.”
—I was under the impression that this was not the case and that no receipt was presented in court.
Great excerpt, Will. Thank you, and best of luck with this book and your writing career.
If you forgive a little levity, don’t you just get sick of hearing people sing that Gloria Gaynor song at you, when you tell them your name?
To Giselle:
Yes, I thought that was so, too. The one mentioned here has a later date than 2 November which is when Quantavalle is supposed to have seen AK so early at the shop on what was a public holiday.
I wondered whether they would have purchased the bleach (on 4 November) to do further cleaning at RS’s flat or if that accounts for the report that his cleaning lady had asked him to buy some bleach? Also, the police officers sent to search his flat after his arrest 6 November reported a strong smell of bleach hitting them in the nose upon entry - does the smell of bleach remain so strong after 4 days?
This is a great, informative site - my thanks to Peter and everyone who works so hard to administer it for the sake of Meredith and her family on top of, I imagine, a busy real time life!
Hey Janus, good one…lol Love that song, it was the theme in one of my favorite movies “Rocky.†Most people pronounce it wrong anyway: they say “Saveev.†Thank you Janus!
Hey Giselle, I tried to write it chronologically for the most part, meaning that I reveal things as they were revealed in the story. The receipt was later found to be irrelevant, as the date on the receipt was weeks before. It comes up breifly in the trial…with the testimony of Sollecito’s cleaning lady, I beleive.
A really interesting excerpt. I hope to get hold of a copy, will it be available on Kindle?. (And I won’t complain if any more excerpts are posted here 😉)
It does put a lot of things into perspective, particularly about the sequence of events in Knox’s questioning and her presence at the police station. She must have been very much on edge, as well as pumped with adrenalin and possibly the after effects of whatever drugs she and RS took when she was at the police station. I imagine she never expected RS to crumble and sell her out like that. The shock of that really pulled the rug out from under her.
An innocent person would not have crumbled like Knox did (I’m talking about a sane innocent person, not a vulnerable mentally sick one of course), because an innocent person knows the truth, and does not have to invent lies, which is very stressful especially on the fly, especially not knowing what your boyfriend is saying in the next room, after he just sold you out.
Knox burst out with the Patrick “confession” to save herself. She’s a compulsive liar anyway. She told police she was there but blamed Patrick. And as Will Savive says, after the sobering night in prison she tried to relieve herself of responsibility: “the best truth I am able to think”. Read “this is the best story I can come up with. If there is hard evidence saying I was there, then I don’t remember. Maybe it was a dream.”
I don’t believe she had memory loss. She knows what happened. She didn’t think she would get caught so easily. So she panicked.
Sorry if this is a stupid question. How is it that AK AND RS can be co defendants when they have conflicting alibis? or am i missing something.
willsavive,
Thanks, I should have inserted “Or not.” between my last two sentences.
I have said before that AK might and possibly should have been treated as a formal suspect when her alibi of being with RS all night was blown out of the water by RS. However I don’t blame the police at all for putting that off until they absolutely had to.
Thanks also for confirming the session between 3.30am and 5.45am. It is a moot point, is it not, as to whether clarifying details is not further questioning of a suspect, be it in the context of Magnini having to decide whether to authorise the arrest of Lumumba?
But again I have no problem with the point at all. There are numerous jurisdictions where continuing to question a suspect and delaying access to a lawyer at the same time can be authorised by the police themselves in circumstances where a serious arrestable offence is involved. In any event AK agreed to meet Mignini without a lawyer.
Hi JHEA,
Co-defendants does not imply that the defendants are co-operating with each other, merely that they are charged with the same offence.
Hi James,
Amanda Knox’s questioning was stopped at 1.45am when she became a suspect. She wasn’t questioned again that night.
Some time later that night, she asked to make a spontaneous statement. Mignini didn’t ask her any questions. He simply took down her statement. He explained this in an interview with Linda Byron:
“All I did was to apply the Italian law proceedings. I really cannot understand any problem.
In the same way, Knox was first heard by the police as a witness, but when some essential elements of her involvement with the murder surfaced, the police suspended the interview, according to Article 63 of the penal proceedings code.
But Knox then decided to render spontaneous declarations, that I took up without any further questioning, which is entirely lawful. According to Article 374 of the penal proceedings code, suspects must be assisted by a lawyer only during a formal interrogation, and when being notified of alleged crimes and questioned by a prosecutor or judge, not when they intend to render unsolicited declarations.
Since I didn’t do anything other than to apply the Italian law applicable to both matters, I am unable to understand the objections and reservations which you are talking about.â€
It is clear from Knox’s 5.45am witness statement that she is making a spontaneous statement:
“I wish to relate spontaneously what happened because these events have deeply bothered me and I am really afraid of Patrick, the African boy who owns the pub called “Le Chic†located in Via Alessi where I work periodically.”
Hey Lilly, thank you! It’s up to Peter whether more excerpts will be posted. Maybe you all can pick what excerpt you would like posted.
Machine, I will def. be adding a note to the book about Lumumba’s denial of police abuse, thanks! Changes take some time to take affect.
I will be away the rest of today and most of 2mor., but I will be back on at that time…Doing an interview 2mor afternoon with radio show “The American Perspective,†with host Judyth Piazza; she is awesome, very excited. It’s pre-recorded, so it will air in a few days, I will let you all know as soon as it’s available. Wish me luck—I’m not the greatest speaker in the world! Lol Gotta go get my teleprompter ready. tty soon…
Just placed my order:)
thanks Peter for posting this. Reading over Knox’s statements, it makes me scratch my head as to how anyone can seriously buy into her laughable and obvious attempts to try to squirm her way out of this situation, and how anyone on the otherside can seriously believe her as being innocent and a victim of a setup.
A question for Will Savive if he doesnt mind me asking. What is your background? are you a journalist or an investigator? You’re obviously well versed on this case and I look forward to reading this book.
willsavive
Thank you for the clarification - I had a hunch that was the case but when you dont have the whole book it can be misleading. I will have to order myself and copy and I should say,this will be the first Knox book I read - first one worth reading and no offense to all the others.
Till that time,I look forward to more excerpts!
Having read some of the latest nonsense eminating from Seattle I am truly amazed that anyone can fall for the hystericle drivel used as some kind of extenuating circumstance to explain away Knox guilt. Reading this concise extract from Will Savive’s book it becomes absolutaly cristal clear concerning Knoxs culpability. Her behavior ie, her sudden breaking down and crying when she herself had not been charged is a very childish attempt to deflect suspicion. She didn’t impicate Guede because that would have been too close to home so she implicated Patrick Lamumba. Some time ago I watched a video clip of Knox taken when she was slighty drunk. There were three or four boys in the room with her. The blond one leaning against the counter made a salcious remark about Knox being “A dirty Jew”. Perhaps this comment might seem innocent of itself (You can check it out if you like.) were it not for the eventual results concerning Lamumba or more to the point Guede since no attempt was made to clean up after him anway. Having lived in Seattle I can attest to its rampant discrimination against any ethnic group in particular anybody whose skin colour is black. Discrimination of this kind does not just exist in the Southern States of the USA but also it is neatly tucked away in several places outside the pail, Seattle being one of them. This is the superiority concept of the society that Knox grew up in. little wonder therefore that she accused a black man for whom she worked and who was about to have her dismissed. How dare he! since (According to Knox and others of her persuasion.) She was in every way superior to him and all other black people. Guede was handy since he was a supplier of drugs and anyway his DNA would implicate him soon enough. The big hole in Knox doing this was because Italian people do not have this rampant discriminatory outlook upon life. This is not to say that it doesn’t exist in Italy far from it. but Italian’s are far more likely to give an African the benefit of the doubt than Americans. Knox, like the vast majority of Americans, believe that everybody on the planet thinks as they do. Or if they don’t then they should, hence the USA’s abysmal foreign policy. It would have been far better for Knox to keep her mouth shut then let Guede take the fall anway. If her alibi had held then she would be free and clear. As it is she will not get away with this at all but will spend many years contemplating her very obvious guilt. Knox was the instigator and the leader here. Her jealousy of Meredith and her anger at Lamumba or part of the same thing and now in spite of the hysteria eminating from Seattle she will be found guilty and rightly so.
PS Just a small observation. The vast majority of Seattle blogs ‘(Steve Shay by exanple)have been closed to any comment. You can draw your own conclusion from this.
Cheers: Grahame Rhodes
Hi Grahame. In every city everywhere I find there are good people. I think you’d agree Seattle is no exception? We have a lot of readers and posters there.
Note that the pro-conspiracy group was probably never large in Seattle in the first place, and is losing most of its traction as more Seattlites inform themselves despite the best efforts of some of the media.
Nobody prominent has taken up the misguided Knox-Mellas cause since Senator Cantwell dropped it like a hot cake more than a year ago. Only Shay and Byron report fervently.
Your reference to the comments areas being closed on pro-Amanda websites kinda proves that Seattle is turning.
Hello Peter
Thank you for that. I guess I was too obscure. My implication is that in every city that is geographically isolated from major centers there seems to be a small but virulent section of the community that has problems with minorities. A case in point is Halifax in Nova Scotia Canada. Halifax during the American Civil War was the final destination for the Eastern Underground Railroad which smuggled run-away slaves from the Southern States all the way into Canada. As a result there came into existence in Halifax a community called ‘Africville’ They had their own schools and their own church. The local government in 1970 brought in heavy equipment and bulldozed ‘Africville’ in the middle of the night without any warning to the local black community. They did this to make way for the construction of a new bridge. This stain upon the history of Halifax is an example of the small but virulent groups that have festered in otherwise good caring communities. Seattle is just a similar case in point. While Haifax and Seattle are large centers they are geographically isolated. Also Seattle had it’s own version of the Underground Railroad since that was the jumping off point for slaves to get to British Colombia and freedom. My contention is that Amanda Knox incorporated is part of this small but negative aspect of Seattle society. I mention this since it would explain, at least in part, her later actions in Italy.
Hey Barry,
I have a B.S. in criminal Justice w/concentration in forensic science. I just did a radio interview with “American Perspective†where I go into great detail about my background. I promise to post it here the minute it comes out (its pre-recorded). And considering the continued campaign of the Knoxofiles—such as the Seattle gathering—we need more people on our side to step up and get more media attention.
Believe me, not many people have the gumption to champion this cause…true justice for Meredith Kercher, which means the guilt of 3. While I was querying agents for this book, one (Sharlene Martin) actually said to me, “Will, thanks for your query below but the only book I’m interested in representing is Amanda Knox’s.†I responded by saying, “So you want to read a book on the case that is full of lies and memory loss?†This really angered her and she said, “I need to tell you I truly resent your comments. I have met with the Knox family, have been close to the investigation and believe totally in her innocence. It seems to me that it is YOU who is trying to cash in her misfortune by writing a book for which you have NO inside knowledge or cooperation.â€
After that correspondence I started receiving strange emails from people trying to persuade me not to write the book, which made me even more determined! This is just one of the horror stories that I encountered trying to take on this task.
Funny, but I have heard many Knox supporters telling me that I am trying to cash in. The fact is that if I really wanted to make a boatload of money I would have written a book on Knox’s innocence and how she was set up, maybe call it “The Framing of Amanda Knox.†Wait; there is already a book out with that title (Yes, I am being a bit facetious). Point is, that the real money to be made is proclaiming Knox’s innocence, because that is what most Americans believe; hence, where the true money making market is. The news media, by and large, are not looking for people who believe Knox to be guilty, that doesn’t make for good media…They don’t want the truth to get in the way of a good story.
I’d also like to say thank you to everyone here for all your kind words and support. I gave this site, Peter Quennell, and all the people on this board a nice plug on the radio show, instructing people to come here if they want the real facts and analysis on the case, because I believe this site is doing a true service for justice!
The vast majority of Seattle blogs ‘(Steve Shay by exanple)have been closed to any comment.
Posted by Grahame Rhodes
Not only that: The West Seattle Herald demanded Steve Shay not to write any further comments and to stop moderating the comment section under his articles after he published an outrageous comment regarding the Kercher’s being money hungry.
Thanks to Peter for posting this excerpt from what looks like a very sound book on the murder of poor Meredith Kercher and to Will Savive, of course, for writing it.
I was especially interested in the account of the evening Amanda Knox accompanied Raffaele Sollecito to the police station. The almost surrealistic way the Lifetime film depicted the interrogation of Knox that night was very bewildering. So, it was a relief to read about the logical manner in which the questioning by the Italian police actually unfolded.
Although a minor point, the fact that Knox had to be reprimanded twice, by two different police officials, about the impropriety of doing gymnastics in a police station suggests a basic willfulness and lack of respect for others.
Rather than intimidating Knox by screaming at her as police did in the Lifetime film, Inspector Ficarra in the excerpt here very reasonably advises her about the problem of credibility that arises when someone has lied to police a second time. It was useful to know that Knox was first asked simply to supply the names of people who had come to the cottage since she had moved in and that she offered her cell phone to produce a list of the names of individuals, along with text messages.
As the excerpt points out, around this time Inspector Zugarini came to observe (not to harass). Finally, only after Sollecito retracted his original story and no longer gave Knox an alibi, Napoleoni, the head of homicide, entered and instructed Zugarini to ask Knox again where she was when Meredith was killed.
All that seems very reasonable and professional to me. It was also interesting to learn that, contrary to the Lifetime film, where the male who had grilled Sollecito was also there with Knox, all three police officers interviewing Knox that night were women. To me, that makes Knox’s claim that she was smacked on the head even less likely.
“To Giselle:
Yes, I thought that was so, too. The one mentioned here has a later date than 2 November which is when Quantavalle is supposed to have seen AK so early at the shop on what was a public holiday.
I wondered whether they would have purchased the bleach (on 4 November) to do further cleaning at RS’s flat or if that accounts for the report that his cleaning lady had asked him to buy some bleach? Also, the police officers sent to search his flat after his arrest 6 November reported a strong smell of bleach hitting them in the nose upon entry - does the smell of bleach remain so strong after 4 days?
This is a great, informative site - my thanks to Peter and everyone who works so hard to administer it for the sake of Meredith and her family on top of, I imagine, a busy real time life!
Posted by thundering on 04/03/11 at 01:39 AM”
I thought that the purchase of the bleach on Nov 2 was a major point of the prosecution or at least the “prosecutors” on this site. Hmmm. Kind of strange how “little facts” like these seem to get swept under the carpet for the most part on this site. Glad to see it was finally mentioned. Sorry if I seem a bit disgusted, but I get a sense that when things don’t fit into the puzzle exactly, they get twisted ever so slightly or just kept a bit too quiet.
Hello Will Savive,
Are you going to make your book available for ebook?
thanks & all the best
Hey Johansen,
Yes, it should be available in eBook format as well through all major distributors shortly; unfortunately, I do not have an exact date. It will be on Kindle soon as well. When I find out I will let you know.
Hi there,
I’ve been following the case since the start and am very much of the opinion that Amanda is guilty. I was wondering though what sources have been used for the details in the Study Abroad excerpt (for example Ficarra said this, Zugarini did that). Will these be annotated in the text with corresponding footnotes and an appendix of source material?
My reason for asking is that without being able to examine source material, it’s hard to ascertain whether what one is reading is “true” or not. I’m certainly not suggesting that anything in the Study Abroad book is not true, it’s more that I could imagine the Knox camp putting out a book which spins a totally different story and if neither book had source material then how would the reader know what to believe? I think this would be of increased importance in the above book because the style is narrative, eg “The officers were completely astonished and dumbfounded by Knox’s admittance”
I was interested in the comments re bleach above, as it is something I also picked up on. Will, you’ve mentioned that it’s dealt with in a later chapter and that’s great, I think it’s imperative to explore the loose ends even if they are slightly inconvenient and don’t quite fit with the Knox is guilty story.
Just my two cents!
Jane
Hi Kazwell,
I don’t recall any of the main posters on TJMK ever claiming that claiming that bleach was purchased on 2 November 2007 let alone claiming it was a major point for the prosecution. I’d appreciate it if you could give me one example of any of the main posters claiming this on TJMK. If you’re going to make sneering allegations, have the decency to back them up with facts.
According to Barbie Nadeau, the police found a receipt for bleach which was dated 8.15am 4 November 2007 in Sollecito’s apartment.
@ The Machine
I’d just like to thank you for being such an excellent and fair person, and having the decency and courage to take Kazwell to task on the inaccuracies he’s been (very irresponsibly) spreading. This is very important. I wish there were more posters like The Machine to report the facts fairly and decisively.
Kazwell,
There aren’t any prosecutors on this site, at least as far as anyone knows who anyone is on the internet. As for your statement about the Nov 2 bleach receipt, the date on the receipt that was found in Sollecito’s apartment is Nov 4, not Nov 2. I don’t recall this being a “major point” for the prosecution either; do you have a source for that? As for it being a major point on this site, I haven’t seen any posts about it.
Maybe you are confusing this site with some other. In any case, I don’t see that you have provided any evidence that “things” of importance are being swept under the carpet here. Your claim is vague and, as far as you have demonstrated, baseless.
Kazwell seems to have lost me too with his peculiar new claim. My bio is on Facebook, and linked-to here in several comments, and I am not sure if I have even talked to a prosecutor (though in this case I sure wouldnt mind!) as courts are not my usual hang-out.
I first heard of Meredith’s case in mid 2008 and by then it was well established that the only receipt found for bleach was dated 4 November and thus seemed irrelevant. It is still an open question why Amanda was at the Conad store that early at a time when she claimed to be asleep.
In none of her interventions has she denied being at the store, and her defense have never tried to prove otherwise. If she gets on the witness stand as her last best shot, no doubt why she was at the Conad will get talked about till everything becomes clear.
Hey Jane,
80-90 percent of the book is based on trial testimony. Both Ficarra and Napoleoni testified that they were shocked and astonished by Knox’s admissions—that she was there and Patrick was the murderer.
Hi Will Savive,
Thank you for letting us read this excerpt. I’m very excited to purchase and read your book.
Kazwell, I believe you may be confused about the significance of the testimony of the witness, Quintavalle. It’s important because he places her outside of Raffaelle’s flat before 10:00 am and refutes her alibi that she slept until 10:00 am. This proves she is lying about her alibi. I don’t think it matters if she bought anything, shoplifted anything, or left the store empty-handed. What matters in regard to his testimony is that she was lying about where she was.
As far as bleach and apartments, correct me anyone if I’m wrong, but I believe that Amanda and Raffaelle cleaned up Amanda’s apartment without bleach.
After the murder was discovered, they cleaned the knife in Raffaelle’s apartment with bleach.
After they were arrested, the police officers who searched Raffaelle’s apartment testified that there was a strong smell of bleach when they entered to search it.
The receipt itself is irrelevant. Will has used it to show how different bits and pieces of information took on and lost significance as other evidence was gathered.
Judyth Piazza chats with Will Savive, Author of The Study Abroad Murder: Trial of the Century http://bit.ly/fkZkAY
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