The Milestone Book By Dr Andrew Hodges On Knox’s Driving Psychology “As Done Unto You”




1. Who Put Knox’s Psychology Front And Center?

In fact Amanda Knox herself did.

Her turbulent history goes way back. She is on officlal record as having had a difficult and possibly damaging early childhood.  She herself describes her oddball faux-lesbian status at her high school, not of her own doing.  She has been referred to as brash, sharp-elbowed, a drug-using man-eater and risk-taker at the University of Washington.

Suggestive incidents she herself describes (when she is not disavowing them) on her way to Perugia only added to this.

At most, one in 100 American students arrive in Perugia with (1) no formal program via their university back home, and thus no supervision, (2) no enrollment in the University of Perugia - merely enrollment in a glorified language school, which demands less than 10 hours a week of study, (3) no European work permit, no financial grant, and few financial savings; and (4) an assured drug supply. But Amanda Knox was indeed one in 100.

Given her burn rate, her savings would have run out early in 2008. Her drug-supply arrangement began on the train, even before she arrived in Perugia. Around Perugia Knox was soon isolating herself quite relentlessly. With the drug taking and her choices of men to entice and all the people she ticked off, she showed early signs of a pending trainwreck. One of the very few who tried to give her comfort was in fact poor well-meaning Meredith.

Note Knox’s trajectory from the day after Meredith’s murder, where she was reported to stink of cat urine (an indicator of recent cocaine or crystal meth use) after claiming she had showered just 2 hours earlier, through her erratic highs and lows prior to her arrest, to her screaming fits and head-hitting at the central police station, to her endemic feuding with Sollecito, right through 2008 to her trial.






At the Massei trial in 2009 Knox herself put on a front as endlessly daffy - as epitomized in the Beatles T-shirt she wore, and her first interjection to the court, which was about her Bunny vibrator.

That might have worked as an “I am not all there” defense (possibly arrived at between the defense team and the PR scheme) but two things at trial totally destroyed prospects of that.

  • Her strident, sarcastic, callous two-day stint on the witness stand, which was seen on live Italian TV and reported as a disaster for her in Italian eyes here and here.

  • The closed court reconstruction of the exceptionally barbaric pack attack by three assailants, which took Italy’s best crimescene analysts a whole day to present and which made some in the court cry or feel ill; reflected later in a 15-minute video and in the prosecution’s summations. Throughout all of that, Knox herself and her hapless defenses had zero comeback and to this day have still offered no alternative.

From 2007 through late 2011 a number of further hard-to-explain-as-normal episodes took place in Capanne prison. Knox’s paranoid book Waiting To Be Heard says that black is white, down is up, she alone is normal, and everyone around her intends bad.

We have reported frequently and very fairly on all of this, with half a dozen psychologists posting, most especially SeekingUnderstanding, who has long argued Knox is in decline and years overdue for treatment (see especially the post here and post here and post here) surfacing essentially similar insights. That Knox has a lot bottled up and that she cannot stop signalling guilt is a recurring theme of our past Psychology posts here.

Those Americans and Brits who hopped on the PR-driven bandwagon for Knox on the psychology dimension almost all arrived several years after the PR campaign started its Orwellian mission.

Without a single exception ALL of them crash on the details. They leave enormous amounts out, and what they dont leave out is more often wrong than on-target.  One criminal psychologist Dr Saul Kassin was shown to be so seriously off-base that he has disappeared himself. 

The most factually inaccurate and psychologically badly-grounded takes on Knox and her defensive moves have come from John Douglas and others in the fading first generation of “ex FBI profilers”. John Douglas seemingly learned nothing from Kassin’s crash and burn - he repeats the extremely inaccurate and defamatory Kassin depictions largely verbatim. More about the bamboozled “ex FBI profilers” will follow later in this series. 





2. Introducing The Analysis Of Dr Andrew Hodges

Dr Hodges is at the forefront of his vital field now. He is impressively qualified, and widely networked in the crime-fighting community. He has a successful publishing track-record.

He describes his methods in full in his book subtitled The Secret Confession Of Amanda Knox and elsewhere. He arrives at a fair and and extremely detailed and not unkind analyses of both the presumed perp and those hangers-on who surround them.

Dr Hodges himself has suggested to TJMK that, as if he were at one of his presentations (he has presented, among other venues, at FBI Quantico), he should first let others with knowledge of the field speak about the book and about himself.

Accordingly, the rest of this first post consists of some reviews. Future posts in the series will include some book excerpts and some explanations of why various professionals who should have known better have simply misread Knox, John Douglas included.

Review In New York Crime Examiner

By Liz Houle
NY Crime Examiner

Dr. Andrew G. Hodges proves that Amanda Knox is guilty in his new book

July 8, 20157:06 PM MST

The police are investigating the murder of a young woman. They bring three people in for questioning, two males and one female. All claim to be innocent. After hours of questioning the suspects are released. The female goes home and types into the wee hours of the morning. She creates a spontaneous five page email alibi. She writes that she has to “get this off my chest.” She sends it off to approximately 25 people. Her email is addressed to “everyone” and describes her “account” of the last time she saw the murder victim. She writes that as she was “fumbling around the kitchen” when the victim appeared with “blood dripping down her chin.” Afterwards she and her boyfriend did a lot of mopping and cleaning up because they “spilled a lot of water on the floor. “

Later an autopsy would reveal that the murder victim sustained multiple cuts and bruises to her face and neck area by a kitchen knife. As the victim lay dying, a pool of blood spread out on the floor. The blood had been cleaned up afterwards, mopped up, by the homicidal maniacs who had killed her.

A practicing psychotherapist and nationally recognized forensic profiler named Andrew Hodges M.D, has written a new book, As Done Unto You, which decodes the hidden messages in the verbal and written statements of the murder suspects in the Meredith Kercher murder case. Dr. Hodges uses a “cutting-edge forensic profiling technique of thoughtprint decoding by accessing the deeper intelligence (unconscious mind) of suspects in criminal investigations.”

He writes on his website, “I have learned that the human mind works simultaneously on two levels””consciously and unconsciously. The discovery of an unconscious super intelligence [super-intel] reveals that it reads situations in the blink of an eye and invariably tells the complete truth.”

In As Done Unto You he starts with a brief introduction to his methodologies followed by a hypothetical version of events based on the evidence and his findings. He reveals what unfolded the night Meredith Kercher was gang raped and slaughtered in her bedroom. His narration is graphic and has the ring of truth. Hodge’s comprehensive knowledge of this case including some lesser known facts renders his retelling as one of the most profound to date.

We know the who, what, where, when, how of Meredith’s murder so all that is left is the why, and this is what Dr. Hodges brilliantly addresses in his book. Investigators scrambled to find a motive or an immediate trigger(s) provoking Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede to rape and stab Meredith Kercher to death. Prosecutors debated over whether it was it a fight over Amanda Knox’s slovenly habits, indiscriminate sex life, or was it a robbery gone wrong? Hodges answers this riddle unequivocally in his book based on the murder suspects own statements.

Hodges explains, “Unquestionably there would have been two types of motives. Immediate trigger motives and far deeper time-bomb motives which caused such distorted thinking consciously.” (Hodges MD, Andrew G. (2015-06-23). As Done Unto You: The Secret Confession of Amanda Knox (Kindle Locations 740-741). Village House Publishers. Kindle Edition.) There is most likely a list of provocations resulting from the quickly deteriorating relationship between Amanda and Meredith which was witnessed by many. Ultimately it appears that it was Meredith’s rejection of Knox on October 31st that set things off.

On Halloween night in 2007, Knox in her cat costume walked aimlessly around Perugia for hours - alone. She kept texting Meredith over and over to try and meet up with her. Meredith was having fun, partying with her friends and ignored Knox’s persistent texts. This rejection and abandonment on top of a series of earlier clashes with her roommate, unleashed the beast in Amanda - the repressed rage stemming from her early life traumas.

As Hodges explains, “Criminals are typically controlled by deeply buried unconscious emotional trauma which they re-enact on their victims. It’s well-documented that abuse victims often themselves become abusers.”

After the crime is relived in the first two chapters, the author then delves deeply into the inner world of the murderers unconscious. Analyzing their words, Hodges takes the reader through all of the reasons Amanda, Raffaele and Rudy found each other, their shared emotional baggage. All three had upheavals in their early life which brought them together and the toxic combination exploded into a group assault that went too far.

Hodges includes an intriguing and insightful description of the deeper meanings within photographs taken in the months leading up to the crime. This is followed by a methodical and intense study of the murder suspects writing in the rest of the book. In particular he focuses on Amanda Knox’s writing.

Dr. Hodges’s book is dense and full of observations which reveal much more than any other book about this case. Some of the insights that he discovers through thoughtprints include:

  • ” . . . [Knox] suggests they initially entered Meredith’s bedroom “together,” like storm troopers, to carry out maximum humiliation. This never started out as a one-on-one catfight.”(Hodges MD, Andrew G. (2015-06-23). As Done Unto You: The Secret Confession of Amanda Knox (Kindle Locations 243). Village House Publishers. Kindle Edition.)

  • “Amanda also implies . . .that she and Raffael both penetrated Meredith”” as did Rudy Guede, whose DNA was found inside her. It was a gang assault. “Came out” suggests lesbian activity on Amanda’s part. In a later writing, Amanda will recall how people thought she was a lesbian in high school.” (Hodges MD, Andrew G. (2015-06-23). As Done Unto You: The Secret Confession of Amanda Knox (Kindle Locations 3630-3633). Village House Publishers. Kindle Edition.)

  • “[Knox’s] super-intel continues to highlight motives ““ first the immediate trigger motives. Evidence clearly indicates Amanda had significant conflicts with Meredith, and she outright lied about those disagreements. Meredith’s parents, friends and roommates, however, knew about them.” (Hodges MD, Andrew G. (2015-06-23). As Done Unto You: The Secret Confession of Amanda Knox (Kindle Location 3132). Village House Publishers. Kindle Edition.)

  • Amanda certainly knew her parents were married on February 21, 1987, with her mother five months pregnant before Amanda’s birth on July 9. 1987. That meant she was conceived around October 9, 1986. Her utterly brilliant super-intel would have figured out in a heartbeat that it was sometime in November 1986 when they considered the abortion. That month would have had special significance to her and evoked an enormous unconscious anniversary reaction marking her near-death.” (Hodges MD, Andrew G. (2015-06-23). As Done Unto You: The Secret Confession of Amanda Knox (Kindle Location 4747). Village House Publishers. Kindle Edition.)

Over and over again, Dr. Hodges uncovers the distressing realities surrounding that night. Hodges work is truly groundbreaking. As if all of this weren’t enough, in the final chapters he includes the super-intel study of one of Knox’s most prominent supporters, Nina Burleigh, uncovering what she says in between the lines of her own writing.

As Done Unto You is a fascinating, intense and thought provoking look at the truth as only a psychiatrist and FBI profiler with a firm understanding of the Super Intelligence technique could reveal.

Thoughtprint decoding has proven to be an invaluable tool in criminal investigations. Similar to when DNA was first introduced, some people may be circumspect about it however in time it will prove to become critical in solving cases like the murder of Meredith Kercher.

Unfortunately, the Meredith Kercher murder case has been closed and due to the inability of the Italian legal system to confidently identify the multiple attackers, two of the three suspects have been acquitted. Hopefully Dr. Hodges thoughtprints become a part of future murder investigations like this one so that victims families get the closure and justice they deserve.

2. Amazon Reviews By Actual Readers

There are some PR-inspired reviews on Amazon which are so angry and so badly grounded that there is no way those reviewers had read the book. These are some appreciative reviews by those who did actually read it.

From a noted forensic psychiatrist and author (NOT funded by Knox & co.)

By malcontent on July 8, 2015

The “Knoxies” don’t want you to read this…but shouldn’t you make up your own mind? Written by noted forensic psychiatrist and author, this book provides unique insight into the minds of Meredith Kercher’s killers (note: plural). A fine analysis. Fascinating and well done!

Journalist Amanda Knox buries the lead in her own story: “I Confess - I Murdered Meredith!”

By Leigh on July 8, 2015

For those following Meredith Kercher’s murder saga for over seven years, the revelations from Dr. Hodges are not startling. Many of us have been able to read through the lines to find lies and see confessions—early on picking up on the importance of the Nov. 4th, 2007 middle-of-the-night email home to family and friends. I’m grateful to whichever person saw the truth buried there and decided to turn the email over to Perugian Police. Dr. Hodges shows in a very detailed manner exactly how AK’s confesses to her crime. AK selected the victim, manipulated co-conspirators in a pack attack, and struck the fatal knife stab herself. Readers keep in mind, AK is not reporting what actually happened in her many communications efforts, she’s creating a narrative—a story she’s telling in order to extricate herself from blame while confessing through ‘thoughtprints’ which once decoded, show how her unconscious mind is working below the surface.

Following Meredith’s murder, AK couldn’t stop talking, nor stop herself from making insensitive remarks, writing and writing, giving statements, writing ‘memorials’ to police, writing a prison diary, also letters, many letters. And following her 2011 release, doing interviews, writing a book, creating a web site, and positioning herself as wrongfully convicted. There was an abundance of materials for Dr. Hodges to examine. AK didn’t leave breadcrumbs, she left an entire bakery of evidence all over the place within her own communications, while maintaining consciously she was an innocent being persecuted by corrupt Italians.

Dr. Hodges offers several theories as to how AK may have suffered deep psychological wounds in her earliest life and childhood which could have contributed to AK’s instigation of violence against Meredith. According to Hodges, AK followed a ‘reverse golden rule’ so typical of wounded people—“Do unto others as was done unto you.” Throughout ‘As Done…,’ Hodges draws upon words used by AK in her communications after the murder to explain how AK’s deep pain contributed to AK’s decision to commit murder. Location 5827: “Amanda clearly describes the deep entitlement that often drives victims of abuse.”

Dr. Hodges is an optimist, and clearly in the ‘forgiveness business,’ much as Italian prison priest Father Saulo, Hodges believes AK is capable of confession, and desires via her super-intelligence, to confess. Location 6149: “The inescapable conclusion: she (AK) must confess. Her deeper moral compass will prevail.”

However, after watching the AK show for over seven years, I disagree that AK will ever be capable of confessing without a huge financial payoff to her after all legal proceedings are concluded. Self-atonement is meaningless to a narcissistic psychopath like AK—she doesn’t feel guilt—she feels fear of being caught, being found out, what other people think of her. Hodges wants AK to have a soul, but I think she’s empty—a vampire / zombie hybrid—desires to do harm and feels nothing afterwards. In fact, I think AK has not shown a desire to confess in her communications because of guilt, she wants to gloat, she’s proud of her murder, she wants to brag to everyone how she won in her battle with Meredith.

Appreciate how courageously Hodges takes on the gang of retired FBI agents who have voluntarily served among AK’s ‘White Knights.’ Hodges does an effective job at pointing out their errors, especially “the superficial attempts” of John E. Douglas, the retired expert profiler. Location 6244: “He ignores far greater forensic evidence—verbal communications in the forensic documents produced by all 3 ...—which he is not trained to decode.” Also found it interesting Hodges calls attention to an article by Malcolm Gladwell from The New Yorker magazine, Nov. 12, 2007, entitled ‘Dangerous Minds’ that comprehensively highlights the flaws in profiling methodology, still available online as of 7/8/‘15. Very interesting!!!

Dr. Hodges also takes on the lazy American media for spreading deception about AK for years and examines one reporter / book author’s lies and her inability to see, or decision to NOT see below the surface—that one is Nina Burleigh. Burleigh wrote a point-of-view fiction that sold well as non-fiction, that’s why we true justice seekers find her particularly disgusting. Based on our research during Burleigh’s early career as a reporter, Burleigh was eager to gain valuable cooperation and became a rather opportunistic and promiscuous leg-spreader—clearly she saw a kindred spirit in AK. Today, Burleigh routinely yells and rails against female sexual violence, real or imagined—maybe Burleigh’s super-intelligence at work in her own personal narrative? My take, not Dr. Hodges who sees a different set of wounds displayed by Burleigh.

‘As Done Unto You’ is a fascinating insight into the dangerous, criminal mind of a murderer—the more they deny, they more details they give away!

Don’t listen to those “one star” reviews, they’re all ...

By Aki on July 3, 2015

Don’t listen to those “one star” reviews, they’r all written by PR of the Knox entourage. The book is very interesting. Independently from some details that some may find subjective and enphatic on the part of the author, it’s basically a valuable and consistent analysis; deserves to be read, much more than any other recent book on the case.

Great Book!

By Columboon July 1, 2015

This a great book that I highly recommend for anyone following this ongoing case. And Amanda Knox did, in fact, confess to being at the crime scene when it happened when she said “I was there. I heard Meredith screaming.” Right there that is enough guilt for at least a conviction of accessory to murder. Amanda Knox should be doing life without parole right now and may still be sent to prison after the ludicrous acquittal is overturned in Italy. Following that her extradition will be expedited with two of her accomplices already in prison.

Among these readers are many who are driven by a great humanitarian interest

By Student Forever on June 29, 2015

The recent Amanda Knox case has taken on a life of its own. The task at hand facing the Italian court: who IS responsible for the brutal murder of British coed, Meredith Kercher studying abroad in Perugia, Italy? Kercher’s roommate and fellow student, Amanda Knox was clearly the centerpiece of this macabre drama; and still is! It appears that the final “˜not guilty’ verdict of the Italian Supreme Court has done little to quell the verdict rendered by much of the global public that has by compulsion joined the fray.

Many websites devoted to either her guilt or innocence have launched and staunchly attempted to prove their point of view. Book stores and magazine stands have provided a never-ending flow of information and commentary to inform both their casual as well as their more fervent true crime readers.

Among these readers are many who are driven by a great humanitarian interest. That is, those whose heart aches for the pain Meredith’s family have suffered through all the tragic ordeal, and still are left with the crushing question, “Who took the life of our precious Meredith, and WHY?!?” The sentence for this family is “life.”

Missing from the judicial pursuit of culpability has been the testimony of one very important witness: the unseen subconscious mind; the super intelligence of each person involved, especially that of Amanda Knox! This is the infamous 90% of the mind that we do not use, the all-seeing witness that processes and catalogs all stimuli, and which, by no surprise, becomes the most reliable witness for every aspect of this mystery.

The reason this testimony has not been queried to date is because the judicial system, both here and abroad, has not yet discovered the integrity and veracity of the source, and consequently does not look to it as star testimony. They don’t know this “deep throat” witness exists! Who can we approach to get the witness to the stand, and who can evoke the testimony? That is what psychiatrist Andrew G. Hodges brings to the table as a forensic profiler. He demonstrates how to listen to the testimony of the subconscious, revealing “an x ray of the deeper mind of Knox.” In this book, he shows us how this “expert witness” testifies on behalf of Meredith Kercher. She subconsciously drops bread crumbs as it were, in plain sight and sound of the trained de-coder. As her super intelligence gushes the truth, not yielding to the predictable efforts of one trying in vain to maintain a false narrative, the veil of the story is finally lifted.

As Hodges looks directly at the writings of Knox, her own testimony contained therein, it becomes clear to his uniquely trained forensic “eye” that Knox, in her own words, is the one responsible for Kercher’s gruesome death, and she is subconsciously wanting the truth to be told.

Hodges’ book is certainly about Meredith Kercher’s murder, but for me it was also a textbook of what one should know about the super intelligence we all have, and how profoundly it knows who we are.

Amanda: a good girl being framed?

By An Amazon Customer on June 29, 2015

Beginning in 2007 when we first heard news reports of murder charges lodged against American college student Amanda Knox in Italy, many thought she was a good girl being framed by anti-American Italian authorities and the equally anti-American European media.

However, once you learn the gory and often grisly details of the case, which are fairly presented in Dr. Hodges’ excellent book of analysis, you begin to question the party line of Amanda’s supporters, who still maintain her innocence despite the fact that the Italian courts have twice found her guilty of murder in separate trials. Yes, she has been cleared most recently by the Italian Supreme Court in the ping-pong game of Italian justice, which is still not completely over (the Jurists are reserving a slander-against-the-Court charge). But one still wonders what exactly happened when British college student Meredith Kercher had her throat fatally slashed in what looked to be a sex game gone bad””very bad.

Perhaps more than *what* happened, we wonder *why* someone like Amanda would be motivated to participate in so vicious a murder of her roommate, even if that act was fueled by alcohol, sexual tension, and/or drugs in the heat of the moment? Here is where Dr. Hodges, with his extensive experience in creating forensic profiles of serial killers, comes to our aid, using his proven method of linguistic “thoughtprint decoding” to ferret out Amanda’s deeper motivations, hidden in her unconscious mind. Dr. Hodges has worked on several high-profile murder cases, using his same well-established method, including the cases of O.J. Simpson, JonBenet Ramsey, Natalee Hollaway. Casey Anthony, and the BTK serial killer.

Hodges explains how the killer inevitably leaves clues about his guilt in his/her actual words, and how to recognize and interpret these clues; Hodges’ method, though at times complex, is fascinating and understandable if you recognize that we do have an unconscious mind. This part of our mind Dr. Hodges calls “the super-intelligence,” which tries to get the truth out any way it can, while the conscious mind of the guilty person tries to spin the clues to exonerate itself (this is why the clues are partially hidden by the words, stories, images and outright denials the conscious mind uses in its attempt to obscure the ugly truth of guilt).

This book will fascinate you if you are willing to look beyond the surface facts and begin to understand the deeper motives of a killer.

Cutting Edge Science, Metaphysically Profound

By Pieder Beelion June 30, 2015

“There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails” C. S. Lewis

Yes. The conscience is hard on all of mankind, including Amanda. And so we must, even if subconsciously, come clean.

As Done Unto You is a shining example modeling how Christians should “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).

The tone of the entire book is a blend of sobriety, truth and compassion.

I had previously written a review of Hodges’ book on Obama at Tea Party Nation: http://www.teapartynation.com/profiles/blogs/book-review-the-obama-confession-by-dr-andrew-hodges-m-d

I salute the courage, vision, boldness and creativity of Dr. Hodges to produce work and research of this nature.

Dr. Hodges’ work holds out the possibility of uniting a fractured culture into a unified people upheld by a great consensus understanding of our unalienable rights.

Dr. Hodges is full of compassion toward Amanda in all her stages of life. This is a book about compassion and deliverance, not only for Amanda, for the individuals who read this book to understand the moral drama around which their own psyche aligns.

Whereas Physics routinely can perform near instantaneous calculations on dumb unconscious systems that are self-consistent to better than one part in 10^13 or more, Dr. Hodges’ psycholinguistics does not have the same analytical foundation and so ones requires much more time to perform his thoughtprint analysis.

Nonetheless I view Dr. Hodges’ work as breakthrough advancement in science and as one of the most exciting areas in research being performed in science. Science has been spending hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars on space programs and high energy physics which, after the hardware and software tested, points to a philosophical or even a theological quest,

Dr. Hodges’ work subtly invites the thought, “Maybe we didn’t need to spend all that taxpayer money.” Maybe the answers to who we are and the nature of our world are more profoundly found—not in a vacuum chamber decorated with sensitive detectors or in a space station telescope—but in the mind of each one of us.

The postscript is genius: It shows that Hodges is well-read and running circles around the opposition to the Knox-is-guilty thesis. It uses the opposition’s words against them and demonstrates the practicality of Dr. Hodges’ technology.

Finally the postscript is redemptive toward an opposing author, Nina Burleigh. It is a gift of tremendous value to her and something powerful for the reader to behold.  This is the book AmandaKnox does not want you to ...

A positive review

By Ipsos Maation June 30, 2015

This is the book AmandaKnox does not want you to read. I found it fascinating because it explores the possible subconscious tells connecting Amanda Knox to the murder of Meredith Kercher. Provocative and insightful.. Thank you, Dr. Hodges

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Andrew Hodges “As Done Unto You…..”
Location 316 of 7825 :

“...she plunged her large knife into the left side of Meredith’s lower chin and neck with a vicious inward and upward thrust opening a gaping wound all the way into her mouth, exposing her oral cavity and the throat glands in her neck. She created a wound the size of a mouth— as though Meredith now had two mouths, a new one on the side of her chin and neck. The cut was so deep Amanda severed the right thyroid artery on the other side of Meredith’s throat. Amanda literally cut her roommate’s throat. Bright, red blood splattered against the wall and poured onto the floor. In unimaginable distress, Meredith erupts in a piercing scream, resounding through the night air so loudly that neighbors hear it blocks away. She sits up gasping for air but soon falls back against her bed.”

Hodges is a brilliant academic, mathematician, and writer.  His most famous book on Alan Turing is a seminal classic.

Hodges is also in explicit agreement with us on the guilt of Amanda Knox.

However although his refs. to the large knife entering on the left side of Meredith’s neck, crossing over to the right side, severing the Right (Superior)Thyroid Artery, and to the fact that Meredith did scream are most important, his scream-timing is unfortunately back to front.

The same injury that severed Meredith’s Right Superior Thyroid Artery also severed her Hyoid bone, opening her airway directly through the skin to the exterior atmosphere.

This made it impossible for her to Phonate - she could not possibly scream after that injury had been inflicted because the injury made her unable to control the flow of air through her vocal cords that is necessary to generate a scream; she could then generate only the gurgle that Guede described.

So the scream came before, not after the fatal injury, and was caused by the smaller knife-wound entering on the right side of her neck.

In turn, the scream was the immediate cause of infliction of the fatal injury by Amanda Knox, and of Meredith’s “unimaginable” speechless distress.

Posted by Cardiol MD on 07/10/15 at 05:45 PM | #

Wow! just wow! This post by Peter Quennell and Liz Houle’s review of Dr. Hodges’ book is absolutely tremendous.

This post covers all the bases of Hodges’ incredible grasp of thoughtprints. Thoughtprints are small signs that a person is unaware he is revealing in his spoken and written words.

Dr. Hodges’ work as a psychiatrist has trained him to look for incredibly well hidden connections that people make in the words they choose to use, words that on the surface try to cover their crime but that inevitably expose their attitudes toward the victim and their own life stressors going back to earliest childhood.

Dr. Hodges sees failed abortion imagery in what Amanda writes. He suggests Amanda was traumatized in-utero by some sense that she might have been expelled from the womb by abortion, and that she grew up under the shadow of feeling she was not ever wanted, that her parents had begrudgingly allowed her to be born, since it was obvious she was conceived five months before the wedding. Hodges said this fact traumatized Amanda all of her life and made Amanda always feel fragile as if walking a tightrope trying to be accepted in life. It led to her secretly fearing her mother and experiencing her as more rejecting than her father. Like a heat-seeking missile she found two other persons with parental conflicts and buried aggression.

To digress from a point Hodges made: IMO Knox was likely the victim of either sexual abuse as a child or even an actual rape in later youth and repressed much to keep from rocking an already unstable family boat when Edda was a younger single mom. They share birthdays near one another and Edda does seem to have a rather suffocating personality, perhaps a reaction to having almost refused to have her first daughter. Hodges says the parents were “party animals” and probably not ready for the commitment. The fact that Edda might have considered an abortion may be the root of Amanda’s rejection of her mom’s Catholicism, seeing it as phony or hypocritical, yet wishing for it a more pure form by clinging to what the nun at the prison said, and to the priest at the prison. She often wears a silver dove cross symbolizing the Holy Spirit around her neck, and as a sign of a bird’s ability to fly over obstacles (as in prison bars) and live above the earth to some extent.

In Perugia Amanda’s reaction against Meredith who sent a guy to give Amanda a ride home from her job at the bar one night, a guy whom Meredith knew to be aggressive toward females (according to Hodges’ book) might have been a trigger.

This guy did try to push himself sexually on Amanda although she avoided his brutish advances but the fright might have led her to carrying a knife for protection, a knife she then justified in using on Meredith. The incident might have been a very real trigger to hating Meredith and resenting her, if nothing else.

Maybe this was sowing and reaping as Amanda had brought male menaces into the cottage in the way of strange men. Maybe she inflicted such men on defenseless women at the house because it was what was “Done Unto her” in her early years in Seattle. 

Dr. Hodges goes into hundreds of thoughtprint details from Knox’s writings that show she is trying underneath her wordy camouflage to confess to Meredith’s murder.

“As Done Unto You” repeats a truth easy to agree with: when we see a violent crime we have proof that the culprit most likely had experienced something vicious and violent done to himself and was repaying a psychic debt, or discharging some pain whether real or imagined.


Yes, it is still a very subjective science, many leaps have to be made which only the trained psychologist or counselor can do, it’s not for the untutored to connect the dots but it is a science in progress. A very sound method will grow from it.

I do thank Cardiol MD for clarifying that Meredith’s scream preceded the fatal injury based on indisputable fact of anatomy, and was caused by the smaller cut which would also have been painful and totally terrifying, but I stayed up until 4 a.m. reading Hodges’ book online, I could not put it down.

His assessment of Nina Burleigh’s cruel spiritual abortion done by her own godless parents so that Burleigh keeps chasing for God while rejecting Him at the same time, much like Amanda seems to do, is more fruit of Hodges’ ability to read between the lines of Burleigh’s writing.

The above reviews and this marvelous post about “As Done Unto You” are superb in being able to cover so many points succinctly because there is a great deal in Hodges’ book. If you read it you’ll see how condensed and well-proportioned the above post is, managing to cover a whole lot of the most important material.

It would be hard to sum his book up better than this incredible post by Peter Quennell.

It is inspirational to read the Hodges book on thoughtprint analysis which may eventually become a real tool in forensic profiling.

Hodges has the advantage of a discerning mind made moreso through his years of listening to psychiatric patients and studying this field.

He’s a genius in what will be an emerging field to vitally aid criminal investigators.

Posted by Hopeful on 07/10/15 at 08:08 PM | #

Cardiol, as I was reading the quote you selected, I wondered if it was possible for Meredith to scream at that point.  Thank you for addressing that part.

The book sounds somewhat interesting, but I confess I have some reservations about it.  For one, I am skeptical of FBI “profiling,” even when so much information is available.  Secondly, I think it’s a bit risky for anyone to attempt an official analysis of someone they never talked to.  Sure, we’ve talked about this on numerous occasions, but there’s a big difference between an informal discussion in which everyone flags their comments as speculation and a published work.  I imagine that one of the main reasons none of our own have been willing to publish on the subject is because they have no way of securing face-to-face interviews.

I imagine he’s right about a good number of things and it’s possible the NY Crime Examiner picked the wrong quotes.  A couple of the things they highlight seem correct and supported by existed evidence, such as the fact that they probably approached Meredith as a unit and the fact that Knox lied about her conflicts with Meredith. 

At the same time, I don’t think there is any evidence she participated in the sexual assault, although I believe she may have goaded Guede into it.  I also don’t think that the assault had anything to do with whatever faux-lesbian persona she may have had in the past, because rape is not about sex, but dominance and humiliation.  You don’t need to be a lesbian to rape another woman or watch as she is being raped: you just need to want to subjugate and diminish her, to reduce her to a body which can be hurt and used.  It’s no wonder we are all taught that if something happens to us that we can’t prevent or stop, we need to “go somewhere else,” i.e. to intentionally separate ourselves from our bodies in an attempt to protect our minds.  It sounds like an incredibly hard thing to do, but it does make some sense, because the rapist wants to possess and victimize YOU, not just your body, and it’s a way of not ceding control over the most important part.

Secondly, I’m a little skeptical about the significance of November. Has the abortion discussion actually been dated? It could have easily taken place in December for all we know. To me, it seems that the roommates’ absence and the cancelling of plans for the evening seem far more credible reasons for choosing that particular night.

I can’t dismiss a book I haven’t read and I’m definitely willing to read it if review copies are available.  Even if it misses the mark, I don’t expect it to be anywhere near as vile as the duo’s own books and I made it through those even though I felt I needed 10 showers afterwards (especially Sollecito’s, for some reason).  So Peter, if you have permission to share the ebook with a few people, I’d definitely like one, although if the number is limited we should probably give priority to the psychologists.

Posted by Vivianna on 07/10/15 at 08:17 PM | #

I particularly like Dr Hodges’ exposure of Nina Burleigh, self-proclaimed Knox sycophant.  Now I understand better what makes her so annoying.

Vivianna, Dr Hodges’ style might take you a while to get used to, but his reconstruction of the scene is based on the perpetrators’ *own words*.  Necessarily, this is an interpretation as only the perps know the exact detail.  The assault on Mez is based on AK’s own fixation, as detailed in words she uses in various documents.

It’s more than FBI profiling, it is forensic psychiatry.  Dr Hodges uses a magnifying glass to understand what is AK urgently trying to tell us in the email home, or the memoralie “gift”?  Why is she bursting to talk in the questura and in her diary?  What does she mean, “I could kill for a pizza?”  What is AK trying to communicate to us?

In the same way body language gives us away, in AK’s case, all those gulps, pauses, looking down, closing her eyes, microsmiles whilst pretending concern, so too, everything she writes and says is laden.

As a perp she wants to boast - she can barely hold it in: “I was first to find the body” - yet at the same time she realises the necessity of maintaining a story of innocence.  The email home is a part of this urge.  Dr Hodges is looking at what she writes, so doesn’t need to interview her face to face.  A “mind fingerprint” collector, if you like.

In addition, there is bound to be great internal conflict, living a lie to the outside world versus the real killer you.  This is sure to lead to some kind of burnout eventually.

So, a killer with something to hide has to consider every word, every phrase, and keep the facade up.  A set script, and the email home is the template which will help the killer to memorise the lines.  Sooner or later, there will be a slip of the tongue, or a slip of the pen.  The deceiver will try to distract you away from their guilt.  Perhaps by long-winded justifications, rationalisations and denials.

Thus we see AK hastily adding, “I wasn’t there, I was at my friends house”.  Or, “I was the last to see her alive. Er, except for the killer.”

We already have good inbuilt lie detectors and we instinctively recognise a lie.  Dr Hodge helps us understand why and how we do this.

We are not mistaken in our perception many pro-Innocent activists are liars.  Forensic psychiatrist, Dr Hodge confirms this is indeed the case.

This type of deep profiling gives us the tools to expose the carefully calculated lies, concealments and disinformation.

Now we know why it is a false note when AK proclaims, “Meredith was my friend.”

We knew it already, but it’s good to have an expert to back it up.

Posted by Slow Jane on 07/10/15 at 11:40 PM | #

Dr. Hodges is dramatic as well as insightful. His fresh perspectiveis most intriguing…

Posted by Tina on 07/10/15 at 11:51 PM | #

Jane, it’s not the methodology I object to.  Over the years, we’ve done a fair bit of textual analysis probably every bit as detailed as Dr. Hodge’s and I think we’ve picked up on numerous ways in which Knox betrays herself - especially, I think, in her use of pronouns and in the ways she describes Meredith.  Eyes for Lies and another blogger whose name escapes me right now have written some very interesting analyses of their own, which I think were overall very well received here.

Throughout the process, however, we tried to keep each other in check because it’s not particularly difficult to take symbolism and interpretation a mite too far and lose sight of actual events which can also support your point very well.  The part about November bugged me so much because there were so many unexpectedly favorable circumstances for the dynamic duo, that it’s really not necessary to delve into very questionable speculation.  We have a very recent humiliation (Meredith’s Halloween party as opposed to Knox’s lonely night out), a free day, all housemates out of the way, all plans falling through, and access to drugs which may have loosened inhibitions and affected their reasoning.  Now if she had a history of doing something nasty and violent to someone every November, we’d obviously need to start asking why - why is November so relevant to this person?  But while I think her previous violent incidents were thematically connected, it doesn’t seem like they occurred cyclically. 

Like I said, it’s possible the reviewer picked a few things she found personally intriguing and some of them may have been among a handful of less compelling points.  That’s why I said I can’t dismiss this book without reading it, but I also don’t feel 100% confident about it.

PS: I may not be a psychiatrist, but his method is not unique to psychology and relies heavily on techniques which are used in literary criticism and probably linguistics as applied to literature.  My very limited first impression is that Dr. Hodge’s editors were not anywhere near as rigorous as some of the posters here, so some wild speculation wasn’t sufficiently questioned.  I do want to read it, but I expect a mixed bag of right on the money and questionable.

Posted by Vivianna on 07/11/15 at 02:08 AM | #

Thank you Pete! This is a really great and excellent review of an excellent book. Dr. Hodges’ evidence-based scenario of the actual crime, photo analysis, relationships analysis, statement analysis, testimony and evidence analysis along with AK’s email analysis is top notch! I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in this case. Also, this coming Monday, July 13 at 1pm EDT, Dr. Hodges will be featured on the True Crimes podcast. Questions from readers are invited:

https://twitter.com/TrueCrimesPdcst/status/619494200116158464/photo/1

Posted by Johnny Yen on 07/11/15 at 04:02 AM | #

I am still reading the book.

Just like a bomb has several components, the fuse, the initiator, the detonator and the explosive and so on and on, the emotional outburst also have several layers.

I work with young students and believe me, it does happen more often than you think. Many people are unreasonably ultra sensitive. What great life (and childhood) Guede had?

Meredith Kercher is no more with us today because Amanda could get her two sidekicks to act with her. She is the leader but the other two are no less responsible.

I am old fashioned and I insist that men have to take responsibility when things go wrong.

Posted by chami on 07/11/15 at 04:24 AM | #

I agree with Chami that these two “guys” are responsible even though AK was the ‘leader’. She could not have done it without them.

Posted by Vinnie on 07/11/15 at 06:14 AM | #

@Vivianna

“because rape is not about sex, but dominance and humiliation”- absolutely correct. Just like in this case justice has been publicly raped by the PR supertanker.

Amanda Knox is also seeking dominance over her partners in sex. And she has been rather successful. She is neither respected or loved but it is a strange feeling.

I have felt from the beginning that Amanda Knox need treatment and counseling- but she perhaps got neither. She is still trying to get it off but is unable to do so. Perhaps prison will be a good place to think and reflect.

Posted by chami on 07/11/15 at 06:24 AM | #

Vivianna, true, Dr Hodges is very controversial in parts.

Hold your hat!

Posted by Slow Jane on 07/11/15 at 10:40 AM | #

I enjoyed Andrew Hodges book and his account of using “thoughtprint decoding” to analyse AK’s written and verbal statements.

This could prove to be a valuable tool for police investigators who, with practise, would no doubt become more skilled at understanding the less conscious messages coming from suspects,  and thereby help them to more easily “drill down” to likely culprits. However I don’t agree with the reviewer who states “similar to when DNA was first introduced, some people may be circumspect about it however in time it will prove to become critical in solving cases…”. Obviously DNA and fingerprint analyses are objective measures and as such are acceptable to courts but subjective assessments like thoughtprint decoding are ultimately just that, potentially useful in investigations but necessarily error prone; indeed some of Dr. Hodges interpretations seemed (to me) to be highly fanciful; of course he may be right but we can’t be sure.

Overall it must be a welcome development in criminal investigation for it to be recognised that messages coming from individuals are understood to comprise not just their literal, verbal and written statements but also body language, slips of the tongue, metaphorical allusions, etc.

Posted by Odysseus on 07/11/15 at 11:35 AM | #

The idea that rape is always about power and domination and humiliation leads us away from the uncomfortable truth that it is sometimes about sex itself. The way the act is carried out on an unwilling partner will necessarily involve the overpowering and domination and humiliation of the victim but there are many recorded cases where rapists have admitted that they carried out attacks because they were sexually frustrated and couldn’t get a girlfriend. There are sad cases where girls are deemed to have been raped when they have been unable to remember giving consent but their partner has been under the impression that all was well. These examples do not involve men who set out to overpower and humiliate women but rather represent a murky grey area fraught with danger for men and women and usually compounded by the over consumption of drink and drugs. The story of ‘performance artist’ Emma Sulkowicz whose work ‘carry that weight’ involved her walking around campus with a mattress on her back in protest at her ‘rapist’ being allowed to remain on her university, is worth looking at for its polarising elements. She claimed she had been raped and yet exchanged jolly emails with her ‘rapist’ for weeks after the alleged incident. These were not admissible as evidence against her claims. His life has been ruined and she has received huge publicity for her pretentious performance piece.

Posted by pensky on 07/11/15 at 01:23 PM | #

It would be good to also have SeekingUnderstanding’s thoughts here!

Posted by Odysseus on 07/11/15 at 01:32 PM | #

Hello all. I have been thinking a lot, and hope to find time to write tomorrow morning (English time).

Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 07/11/15 at 10:01 PM | #

@Odysseus, you rightly say that people get their messages across with verbal statements, body language, and “metaphorical allusions”. Absolutely.

One time Amanda on receiving letters in prison by admirers, pretended to ridicule the flattery as false when she said people were talking about her as if she were as beautiful as Helen of Troy. Knox made an allusion to Greek mythology.

Helen is variously described as the victim seduced by Paris or by other writers as flighty, flirtatious and given to Bacchanalian debauched lifestyle, but a woman who was the cause of a 10-year war and the downfall of Troy.


So if Knox says “I’m not like Helen of Troy”, it is likely she does consider herself somewhat like the woman she alludes to. This murder case has ground on for 8 years, what is 10 years, only 2 more to go like the Trojan war of 10 years? Then the Trojan horse tactic finally ended the siege and gave Greeks the victory by stealth and treachery. A gift as in Knox’s “gift” as she called it to Perugian police, may not be a positive thing after all. So much for the fatal gift of beauty. I don’t know what Dr. Hodges would make of Amanda’s reference to Helen of Troy.

Some modern Romans claim to be descendants of the few remaining Trojans who escaped their decimated city after the siege.

The main point of the Helen story: a woman who caused serious serious trouble.

The legend of Paris was bad, too. His mom had a dream that she gave birth to a flaming torch. A seer said it meant the child would destroy his homeland (Troy), and he did. I equate Paris with Raffaele.

Anyway, I used to read the book “Greek Gold” by Irving Stone every summer by the pool and marveled at the passion of Heinrich Schliemann to dig for remains of Troy based on The Odyssey and with help from Frank Calvert’s advice. Schliemann succeeded, too, with help from his Greek wife.

Posted by Hopeful on 07/12/15 at 02:00 AM | #

@Hopeful - When our children heard the story of The Face that Launched A Thousand Ships, they made-up a unit of Beauty: the MilliHelen - enough Beauty to launch one ship.

If Meredith was rated 2 Helens on that scale, how envious would that have made Amanda?

Posted by Cardiol MD on 07/12/15 at 07:42 AM | #

@hopeful

I love Greek mythology, especially The Odyssey -  don’t get me going!  Myths of course describe archetypes of human experience and on one level The Odyssey describes the journey of self -discovery we are all embarked on, from egocentric and hostile engagement in the world (The Trojan War), through harrowing encounters with our repressed shadow self (appearing as monsters and sirens) and finally arriving home in our native land where we can reunite with our more right-brain, “feminine” aspects (Penelope) and reclaim our rightful kingship. Joseph Campbell is good on this (“The Hero With A Thousand Faces”).

I haven’t read “Greek Gold” but I’ll look out for it. Sounds like a good book for a Greek Island beach this summer (we live in hope!).

Posted by Odysseus on 07/12/15 at 09:17 AM | #

I am glad Dr Hodges’ book is being published, and it is good that this method of ‘super-Intel’ messages, and their interpretation is being developed.

If it were easy to pursue a path of seeking the truth, many more would be taking this journey! It is not easy…but subtle and full of paradox, often.

Any sincere and intelligent method of coming nearer to the whole truth, and breaking the spells of self-deception and lies-meant-to-manipulate is very welcome.

I have long thought and felt that persons of all ages and ‘types’ will always reveal themselves - if we have the art of listening, and also asking the right questions. It is something one learns as a counsellor, partly because time is limited. One needs to get to the core of the issue(s) that are troubling, or disturbing, or blocking progress, as soon as one can.

There is no place for circumlocution in counselling- or, if there is,- that is if someone starts doing it - it is a sure sign that something crucial is being withheld.

People want to tell you things, they want to be heard, to be understood, and yes, to be liked and also forgiven. So unconsciously they will always be giving you the relevant information. The more inner despair they have, feeling they will NOT be heard nor understood (and therefore rejected), the more their ‘messages’ will be tied up and convoluted, in symbol etc.

(Even the title of AK’s book Waiting to be Heard, carries its own pathos in this regard).

The messages will be through tone of voice, pauses (what is not said), through touch points of anger or tears, through facial and body language etc. The difficult, and sometimes contentious, area is when one comes to interpretation.

I see this as being an ongoing evolution - there is still much to learn about the art and science of interpretation.

Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 07/12/15 at 11:56 AM | #

@chami

Regarding counselling for Amanda - unfortunately some people are untreatable, as some children are unteachable.

Something has to happen, within the child or the adult’s psyche, where they are prepared to let go of an entrenched self-destructive pattern of thought, and gingerly allow themselves the possibility of thinking differently.

Someone has to be willing to learn. That usually means change and adaption. Habits of thought are as much habits as habits of outward behaviour.

In fact, do not the outward manifestations stem first from the thought-habit? People have false beliefs - but their insecurities prevent them from having the courage to leave these false beliefs behind them.

The greater the insecurity, and the damage to the ‘core’ self, and the lack of self knowledge and realistic self worth, the more impossible new learning becomes.

The very worst thing, as I see it, about the disgraceful PR campaign, which Knox’s parents instigated, is that it entrenched fear and cover-up, and disallowed searching for truth, and learning. It perpetuated the neurosis and dysfunction that had caused the destructive behaviour in the first place.

Regardless of any interaction with the judiciaries, such a campaign is shameful, deeply shameful.

In time, if not already, it will be seen as such by all.

Speaking of Greek myths, if ‘victory’ is the result, it is totally a Pyrrhic victory.

Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 07/12/15 at 12:16 PM | #

Hi- OT (sorry): Wiki news- new files:

On 2007 Investigations: Police work page
2007-11-03-Log-cellphone-KercherM-English.pdf
2007-11-03-Log-cellphone-Sollecito.pdf
2007-11-07-Log-landphone-Sollecito.pdf
2007-11-27-Police-deposition-Capezzali.pdf

On 2007 Investigations: Arrests page
2007-11-07-Prosecutor-notice-Request-to-validate-Arrest-Knox-Lumumba-Sollecito.pdf

On Arrest trials page
2008-01-21-Testimony-Bernaschi-Sollecito.pdf
2008-05-15-Motivazioni-Matteini-reconfirming-cautionary-arrest-Knox.pdf

On Arrest trials: KSL: Matteini trial page
2007-11-08-Testimony-Matteini-Knox.pdf

On Arrest trials: KS: Ricciarelli trial page
2007-11-30-Motivazioni-Ricciarelli-Arresto-Appello-Knox-Sollecito.pdf (forever missing Ricciarelli report)

On 2008 Investigations page
2008-11-08-Deposition-Monacchia.pdf

On Trials: Micheli court page
2008-09-16-Testimony-Summary-and-Rulings-Micheli.pdf (first Micheli hearing)
2008-10-27-Report-Fioravanti-Vodaphone.pdf

On Trials: KS: Massei and Cristiani trial page
2009-11-20-Closing-arguments-Mignini.pdf (forever missing)
2009-11-21-Closing-arguments-Comodi-Knox.pdf (forever missing- Comodi describes 3D reconstruction)

On Trials: KS: Hellmann and Zanetti trial page
2010-12-11-Testimony-Lawyers-Knox-Parisi-Maori-Ghirga-Vedova.pdf (missing Hellmann hearings)
2010-12-18-Testimony-Costagliola-Comodi-Perna.pdf
2011-01-22-Testimony-Lawyers.pdf
2011-03-12-Testimony-Mandarino-Pucciarini-Ciasullo-Bevilacqua-IniG-IniR.pdf
2011-03-26-Testimony-Brughini-Curatolo-Lucarelli.pdf
2011-05-21-Testimony-Napoleoni-Conti-Vecchiotti-Knox.pdf
2010-12-11-Court-doc-Zanetti-case-review.pdf

On Trials: KS: Nencini and Cicerchia trial page
2014-01-20-Testimony-Maori-Crini-Pacelli-Fabiani-Perna-Maresca-Donati-Colotti.pdf (missing Nencini hearing)

On Trials: Knox and Sollecito trials page
2015-03-30-Sentenza-Cassazione-Dispositivo-Knox-Sollecito.pdf (sentence, not motivations report)

Posted by azoza on 07/12/15 at 01:10 PM | #

Hi SeekingUnderstanding

Good post - thank you.

“Even the title of AK’s book Waiting to be Heard, carries its own pathos in this regard”. Excellent - how true.

Posted by Odysseus on 07/12/15 at 02:10 PM | #

@Pensky, yeah Mattress Girl raises a few eyebrows. If she did communicate with her “rapist” on friendly terms for weeks afterwards, what a shameless garden variety attention seeker she is, a drama queen who will be forever tied to her mattress of political theatre. I don’t know her full story. I think she’s now being sued by her so-called “rapist” for harassment. The fellow she hates may not be all sweetness and light, but she may be truly sick and vindictive, not sure.

@Odysseus, correction: Book is The Greek Treasure by Irving Stone. I’ve come sadly late to an appreciation of Greek myths, but I watched “Clash of the Titans” dvd last week, great stuff.

@SeekingUnderstanding, you always enlighten us. You along with Dr. Hodges must have rare insight and wisdom about different personalities. Took me fifty years to figure out people even a little.

Someone mentioned this key question for getting to the heart of a person’s motivation: “What do you want? or What are you after? What are you trying to achieve?” What will a man work for?

About 20 years ago I learned I didn’t really want to be a paralegal when I honestly asked myself the question, “Are you willing to work at some job you don’t like to raise $$$ to pay for paralegal courses?” The answer was: No.

People having to “change” is the crux of it, we all hate to be prodded out of our comfort zone.

One clue: look at a person’s finances, see what they spend their money on, that’s a neon sign of what they value and who they value. How and where they spend their time. People vote with their feet. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. I learned my treasure is solitude and quietness and nature among other things. I find it hard to part with those for almost any cause.

I guess we have to believe in clear rewards, and even extravagant rewards to risk anything.

Maybe many people despair because they didn’t receive consistent rewards for their effort during youth, due to short-sighted parents. Trust is broken and doubt seems like protection.

Our pastor is teaching on “Dream Again” based on “without a vision, the people perish” and says dreams are the language of God, that we should withdraw from the cares of life and wait quietly for Him to reveal things, to “see what God will speak” by seeing the Words he has already spoken in Scripture.

Today he said Step One is to withdraw awhile not rushing anything, but being very patient. Dreams are born in God’s presence. Last step is to write down the vision once it’s revealed and review it at intervals.

@Bettina, @Vivianna @Slow Jane @Johnny Yen and others too—good to see your comments, to see your names.

Posted by Hopeful on 07/12/15 at 07:46 PM | #

I have been a stout supporter of TJMK for a long time, so I am probably running a tad against the flow when I write that I am not particularly impressed with Dr Hodges’s analysis of Knox and Co.

He is undoubtedly at his best when he analyses the background history of Knox, Sollecito and Guede, highlighting the similarities that compounded to draw them into a plot to demean Meredith, both physically and sexually - a plot that escalated to bloody murder.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, Dr Hodges goes on to develop his “thoughtprint” analysis of Knox’s statements and writings, allegedly because they are the encoded and entirely reliable thoughts of her subconscious mind. Once decoded, Dr Hodges invariably reveals that Knox is openly admitting her guilt and that of Sollecito and Guede.

It seems to me that he particularly relies on his analysis of the 5 page email that Knox sent to her “friends” in Seattle shortly after Meredith’s murder. This email is peppered with simple grammatical and spelling errors, the latter often involving missing or transposed letters. Such errors might be more readily excused because Knox was under considerable stress when she was writing it.

Thus, for example, Knox misspells the word “police” as “polie”, and this leads to Dr. Hodge’s “thoughtprint” analysis that her subconscious is actually confessing that “.... she’s lying to the police, (“po-lie”). This, for me, is just too much to swallow and there are many such and even more fanciful analyses in this book.

I have a long scientific training and I would therefore need much more persuasion on the concept of “thoughtprints” than Dr Hodge can muster in this book. 

It is not often that I agree with anything the deluded FOA brigade say about Knox’s innocence, but I do tend to agree with them that this book is “pseudo-science”.

The whole theory of “thoughtprints” cries out for proper independent scientific investigation and validation and I do not think that is likely to happen any time soon. Anecdotal “proof” of it will simply not suffice.

I have no wish to give succour to the fan club of the guilty-as-hell Knox and Sollecito, but while we uncritically applaud Dr Hodge’s “thoughtprint” analysis and rely on it, I fear that we may be undermining the integrity and credibility of our promotion of True Justice for Meredith and her memory.

Posted by Mealer on 07/12/15 at 07:59 PM | #

Hi Mealer

Fair points.

Posted by Odysseus on 07/12/15 at 08:44 PM | #

@Mealer
I believe there is a middle ground between uncritically applauding and relying on Dr H’s analysis, as you suggest, or else dismissing it as being being entirely without worth.

I have not been able to agree fully with much of his interpretation - I do feel much of it is taking things too far, and sometimes straining credibility.
However, I just left it in the realm of interpretation - it is quite common for psychologists to take up with quite different interpretations and ways of seeing things!

What I do feel is important, is for anyone and everyone to take care to differentiate between speculation, and certain truth (as Cardiol, with Certainties). Speculation is not without merit, and itself can be triggered from a place of intuition that can bring useful thoughts and ideas.
But we need to be clear when it is, nevertheless, speculation, and much of it is bound to remain so.

@Hopeful. I like very much your concept of dreams being the true medium to reveal meaningfulness to ourselves. We can learn to listen attentively to our dreams,- and they can both help us and bring us comfort.

Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 07/12/15 at 08:55 PM | #

@Mealer, I partly agree with you because hard facts are the main thing needed. Without Knox’s DNA mixed with Meredith’s blood in 5 different spots, not just one or two spots and without the Luminol showing bloody footprints, or without Raf’s DNA on bra and his footprint on a rug (and even the latter is questionable as he of course argues), I would not be convinced of their guilt, either. Yet Dr. Hodges’s thoughtprints do confirm the suspicions and intuitions of guilt.


SeekingUnderstanding’s opinion of Hodges is the middle ground that contains the most truth and I agree with her 100%.

I highly commend Hodges for putting his microscope up to Knox’s every printed word, he has tweezered out so many little tells in her language, and he’s a native English speaker American style.

Like Mealer points out, Knox often misspells, was tired and made keyboard errors, so how much reliance can we put on her errors being important? who knows, (she may be dyslexic, IMO) but then there’s the old Freudian saying, “There are no accidents.” I assume Hodges agrees that even the errors are meaningful? More importantly, Hodges analyzes mostly from error-free statements so that to rule out the fanciful items would still leave many thoughtprints that confirm guilt. If Hodges were not an experienced psychiatrist I would be more skeptical of his ideas, nor do I agree with all of his thoughts particularly on JonBenet Ramsey case.

I agree fully with Hodges’ overarching premise that a murderer has a deep intelligence that wants to tell the truth, but is stymied by the body’s fear of punishment and must confess in hidden language.

We see frequent bungling right after a crime by the normally careful killer that it seems culprits do nearly connive at their own capture and punishment. Maybe it’s the last vestige of conscience within them. And even a “conscience” cannot be proven.

I think little is certain in this world and much that is certain to one man’s mind cannot be proven or imparted to others. Only numbers and science bring the comfort of certainty in this world, what a mercy.

It was the scientific evidence that convinced me of Knox’s guilt and therefore Raffaele’s guilt in the early years. I believe it was Michael on PMF.net harping on the 5 spots of Knox’s DNA, DNA most likely from Knox’s blood as Gen. Garofano suggested. Garofano is a top DNA expert who almost got this case. Well it was Knox’s DNA mixed with Meredith’s blood in so many places at the cottage, especially Filomena’s room, that greatly increased the likelihood of Knox being present at the murder. Michael said even 2 or 3 spots might be argued away as some coincidence since the women lived together, but with 5 mixtures in blood, blood that was present only the night Meredith was murdered, the chances rise that Knox was there that night. 

It’s right to question unproven methods or controversial theories. I certainly would not want Amanda and Raffaele declared guilty and sent to prison based merely on thoughtprints of their writings.

Thoughtprints only serve to bolster the scientific evidence a little bit and explain more about the motive, much like Knox’s “eewww…yucky” indicates an attitude toward Meredith that is not quantifiable.

Posted by Hopeful on 07/13/15 at 12:18 AM | #

Well modulated comments by Hopeful and SeekingUnderstanding above. I do agree.

I would add that the Knox people are certainly not the first “experts” most of us here would turn to to determine whether any particular body of work is “pseudo science”.

Both they and Amanda Knox herself in her book rated the false confession “science” of Saul Kassin to be really amazing, “explaining” all about Knox’s meltdown at the questura - to a global John Jay College audience.

And yet from three directions in half a dozen posts we showed Kassin’s “science” had feet of clay: (1) numerous hard facts in evidence which he got wrong, (2) Kassin’s own methodology which showed Knox was not in the vulnerable group, (3 ) our long series on the Interrogation Hoax which showed what really happened that night..

How did other pro-Knox experts do? Greg Hampikian? Steve Moore? John Douglas in his two books? Jim Clemente? All those many who attacked Dr Stefanoni? In fact, did any of them do any good science at all? Were ANY of them ever proved right?

In my field (growth management) most growth management is still pseudo science these days. Ask the poor Greeks. And take a look at this:

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

Contrary to all of the above, Dr Hodges is very well qualified in psychiatry and does have a history of being right, and of not hopping on bandwagons to make a buck. He has deep clinical experience and is in demand by cool law enforcement struggling with murk.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/13/15 at 04:56 AM | #

Very true. There may be several different interpretations of any opinions based either upon science, or hard facts or even gut feelings. So be it. But within those interpretations the true core of undeniable truth and culpability come through and cannot be denied. Knox is guilty of the rape torture and murder of Meredith Kercher that, (in spite of the rabid screams and hysteria of innocence from the Knox supporters) is an established fact and cannot be denied. even Saul Kassin at his twisted best cannot explain all the facts away but puts it down the the well worn phrase “Well We Will Never Know” that comes up when all else fails to establish and try to explain away those nasty facts that get in the way of trying to expalin Knox innocence.

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 07/13/15 at 03:37 PM | #

@Mealer

I understand your concern.

I am a scientist by training and profession but this is beyond me. I too do not agree to many details but please apply his methods on his own writings. Do not focus on the words- or the sentences for that matter- but try to see a picture. Please take the text out of focus and try to see his point. In a nut shell, he is telling that much of what Amanda Knox has said and written contains some underlying statements about the murder.

To give a concrete example, I do not see much in the three photos he has analysed over several pages. I have tried to see his points jump out from the pictures but I could not. No, taken in isolation, the photos do not say much. Unless, of course, you are Dr Hodges. But then these should not take be taken in isolation, they must be seen together.

I have not yet finished reading the book and my comments may be premature. But then, taken everything together, I can see the point he is trying to make. Yes, there is considerably evidence that Amanda Knox has already admitted to the murder. But then there is no single sentence to that effect…

How does work for a lawyer?

Posted by chami on 07/13/15 at 05:25 PM | #

Dr. Hodge’s theory - that Meredith’s rejection on Halloween ‘07 aggravated/agitated Amanda Knox’s core trauma - her profound sense of abandonment - and fueled the rage that led to her murder - resonates with me.  I highly recommend this book.

The first book I read about the case - Darkness Descending - described Knox standing outside the club (stalking)  where Meredith danced and partied with her friends inside gave the first glimpse of how alone and angry she was. In her own book Knox wrote about her long term anger management struggle. She said that she’d found a coping mechanism - beating herself in the temples - to help soothe her temper.

Further, Amanda Knox does seem to confess in her writing - her email to 25 friends- ‘My Love’ the letter she wrote to Sollecito in prison (and won a prison writing contest for)- the screenplay she wrote for ‘The Mistral Blows’ for the band Hot, Many have commented to this effect on various forums. That Knox’s rage is clinically assessed by an esteemed psychiatrist who is consulted by law enforcement (including the FBI) should come as no surprise, nor that he uses her own words in making his assessment. The real surprise was the previous gen of ex-FBI who made excuse after excuse for Knox’s behavior.

Turning to psychiatry to address the question of motive seems like the proper approach. Hodges doesn’t suggest this supplant the scientific or circumstantial evidence against her.

Posted by louiehaha on 07/13/15 at 07:11 PM | #

Before Freud, the best pop psychologist was Wm Shakespeare! Psychoanalysis enabled people to stop stumbling about, blindly wreaking havoc through their misunderstood inner conflicts. However, even Dr Freud has been found to have fudged his findings in his own favour, in order to promote himself and his field.

Anyone here familiar with my artwork knows that I am no fan of the Knoxes and their cohorts. That said, I could extend some measure of sympathy to AK, if she was the recipient of psychological abuse. Loud argument, even absent physical violence, will instill fear in infants and children. No one explains to them the genuine underlying causes of their parents’ inability to treat one another with civility, or, worse, they do explain, naming the child as the lynchpin of the argument. (I would never have married him/her, if it hadn’t been for you lousy kids… He/she wanted you; I never did, etc.)
But if she was ever actually told that her mother considered aborting, and waited too long, that is understandable cause for internalized trauma. I know, because those words were spoken to me.
I have bumped into Curt a few times, now, and three of his daughters, Amanda, Deanna, and Ashley. The only one who currently seems angry, self-centered, and possibly headed for conflict is Ashley. She looks like Lady Gaga possessed by Cruella Deville. Deanna was small, plain and meek. Amanda was exceedingly ordinary. Homely, even. No one who didn’t recognise Her would suspect that she had ever let her pent up resentment and shouldering ego drive her to commit anything so brutal as the torture and butchery shown to Meredith.

Posted by mimi on 07/13/15 at 10:51 PM | #

Hi Louiehaha
Yes of course you are right. It’s best to remember that up until the time Knox arrived in Perugia she had been under the impression that, comparatively speaking, she was educated. Her standard of education in Seattle was considered OK which is fine as long as you stay in Seattle. Going to another country and being dropped among a group of girls who had real scholarships, girls who had real talent and worked like mad to improve their education, girls who spoke other languages fluently, girls who were very intelligent, in other words anybody who was not Amanda Knox who considered her time in Italy to be one long holiday. Amanda Knox who’s only claim to fame was having sex with as many strangers as possible while doing drugs in all manner of situations. Small wonder that she hooked up with Raphael Sollecito (flavor of the week) who was just another spoiled brat.

If you consider that, then imagine that any dislike and jealousy and frustration that Knox felt before leaving the USA was compounded a thousand percent particularly when she lost her job to Meredith who was such a better and superior human being than Knox could ever aspire to. The rage that Knox felt towards the human race in in general and her father in particular for having abandoned her as a child plus her mother who had considered aborting Knox in the first place. Then Knox killing Meredith becomes obvious. She did not just kill Meredith but killed her in most vile way possible in order to take her revenge upon a life that had dealt her a rotten pack of cards. She used the knife fetish virgin child Sollecito as a foil, and Guede and or Patrick Lamumba as a dupe to take the fall when things went wrong. It was preplanned. Knox hitting herself on the head is just another example in a long line of examples why Knox is a very sick person. I believe that given the right triggers she will kill again.

It’s really very simple

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 07/14/15 at 02:20 AM | #

@mimi, it’s awful what cruel thing was said to you, and I hope you take back your power or already have. Words and emotional assaults have ruined many lives, especially if dealt to young children.

Thank you for sharing the sightings of Curt and his daughters. Wow! that must be tough.

It’s sad to hear Ashley looks headed for conflict. She didn’t do anything wrong and was swept up into the notoriety at an impressionable age.

Surely all 3 of Amanda’s sisters were greatly affected by her actions and then her ongoing campaign of self, and what she put their parents through. She robbed them of a great deal, I hope the innocent sisters can believe for restoration and receive four times more than the devil has stolen.

I read that Deanna has studied to become a midwife. If true, that would be a sign that she wants to bring life into the world and do the opposite of her sister.

Amanda worked briefly at an OB-GYN office, IIRC.

In light of what occurred with Meredith, I’ve always wondered about that choice of employment. It might lend credence to Hodges’ views about the abortion fear.

Amanda also worked part-time at an art gallery, too. The World Cup coffee bar she worked at, later closed down.

Maybe Amanda tries to look ordinary in recent days to blend into the background and not create a photo op for media. Is it possible she doesn’t dress up and “fix up” as a female because she doesn’t feel she deserves it after robbing Meredith? 

Her sisters did not deserve to take the back burner to Knox’s Black Swan saga for so many of their formative years. I hope they take Amanda’s negative example and turn it into positive motivation to avoid the same cliffs.

Deanna may have a truly good heart and be trying to atone for her sister’s possible murder by working in a life giving field and helping birth new life. A journey of redemption.

Posted by Hopeful on 07/14/15 at 03:04 AM | #

@Hopeful

“Deanna may have a truly good heart” but I am afraid that she may not listening to her heart most of the time. Your heart does not control the hormones (say emotions) and with little effort you can of course control your emotions.

In Perugia, if I recall correctly, she mentioned that someone has scribbled some objectionable words on her desk (at the court during the trial). She did not take a photo with her cellphone or made a complaint to the authorities. While such an incident can certainly take place but I think she is lying.

What she thought when her sister flirted with a total stranger in the train? Did she made any comments at all? I am just curious.

Posted by chami on 07/14/15 at 04:36 AM | #

I feel sorry for Deanna.  Dumped alone at a hotel while AK went off to have sex and drugs with a guy she picked up on a train in Deanna’s presence.

When Deanna announced outside the Hellmann court her sister’s release, she was met by a wall of boos and muted cheers.

It must be so hard for her, living in her sister’s notorious shadow.  Trying to maintain loyalty and love, yet being so badly let down by Big Sister whom we yearn to look up to and walk the path of life ahead of us, making easier the way.

Poor, poor Deanna.

Posted by Slow Jane on 07/14/15 at 01:11 PM | #

Observing the American psyche from a psychological point of view it becomes apparent very quickly that Americans have little use for patience. In other words they want everything in the ‘Now’ since that is where they live. The overall view is that yesterday was old news so we will concentrate upon the latest scandal/jail escape/election rhetoric et-al.

Amanda Knox is old news both literally and physically and she does not matter anymore or as her supporters mistakenly say “Well! She was Found Innocent So That’s That.”

This is good because the counter balance of course, is that the people within this web site and many others have great patience where this is concerned and we will not let the memory of Meredith fade into oblivion but we will keep on digging away to eventually prove without any shadow of a doubt whatever that Knox is guilty of the rape torture and murder of Meredith.

When that happens the waves of hate towards Knox will be paramount because nobody likes to be made a fool of, in particular those who believe in her innocence using only hearsay hyperbole and lies. Time therefore is on Meredith’s side to see that true justice is served and Amanda Knox is brought to face her past and pay for it.

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 07/14/15 at 07:26 PM | #

@SeekingUnderstanding


“Speaking of Greek myths, if ‘victory’ is the result, it is totally a Pyrrhic victory”

Your statement got stuck in my head. Aren’t all victories won by war? Another name of violence? But at what cost? And who pays for the victory?

There is an equal and opposite loss for every victory. I think it is a zero sum game. But you are right in a sense: it is always the victory for one and never for all.

The war in the Greek mythology started for a really petty reason. The girl, mother of a nursing child, left her family and ran away for a charming man- infatuation, is that the word? Many paid for her indiscretion with their lives.

Really not much different from the two World Wars we had.

Does truth depends on the point of view? Perspective or context? Is absolute truth an oxymoron? How about right and wrong?

I personally believe than Amanda Knox is principally responsible for the death of Meredith Kercher. We need justice because I want to tell people that we do not condone such actions.

Posted by chami on 07/16/15 at 04:17 AM | #

@Grahame Rhodes

(Heard from a friend when I was a student)

Two psychiatrists meet on the way. The first one says: you are fine. How am I?

The second one replies: (the friend could not hear the reply).

The mathematician’s reply would have been the incompleteness theorem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel’s_incompleteness_theorems).

Posted by chami on 07/16/15 at 01:08 PM | #

@ chami
Hi there chami There is another reason, or to para phrase Ayn Rand. “The second/third raters of this world must never be allowed to win because by so doing they diminish the minority of people who can think for themselves.”

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 07/16/15 at 06:39 PM | #

@ Grahme Rhodes

You wrote, “Observing the American psyche from a psychological point of view it becomes apparent very quickly that Americans have little use for patience. In other words they want everything in the ‘Now’ since that is where they live.”

With respect, you should consider easing up with the generalizations!  There are over 300,000,000 Americans.  I am one of them.  I can assure you that comments like these are an example of being fair minded in content nor tone to many millions of us nor to our ancestors.  I mean I personally have been researching Meredith’s case for going on two years and it doesn’t have much if anything at all to “the Now” where you are asserting “Americans” live.  I think everyone involved in seeking true justice for Meredith and her family has patience including the many of us who are Americans.  I would say you shouldn’t equate being “American” with being a supporter of Amanda Knox.  Americans don’t support Amanda Knox.  Her petitions got 2,000-5,000 signature, most of them fake!

Posted by JohnQ on 07/19/15 at 05:51 AM | #

PS, Ayn Rand was an American author who based her philosophy on her adoration of William Edward Hickman a notorious serial killer.  She would be a very ironic source to tell us anything about Meredith’s case.  I’m sorry this rag tag band of murder groupies in Meredith’s case has seemed to represent Americans to you and others.  I think it’s unfortunate because the FOA are not mainstream Americans. They represent racism, xenophobia, and chauvinism. They do not represent me or anyone I know or would dream of associating with in any context.

Posted by JohnQ on 07/19/15 at 06:08 AM | #

@ JohnQ
OK I stand corrected. Working backwards I had no idea that Ayn Rand based anything upon William Hickman but rather Frank Lloyd Wright therefore her book ‘The Fountainhead’ and ‘We the living’ was based upon that.
As to the observation that “Americans have little use for patience.” My apologies. However, the observation from other countries is such that Americans, and to a greater or a lesser extent the rest of the world, do not partake of personal discourse but communicate with their thumbs. Personal face to face communication is shunned hence the introduction of faxes, email and the internet.
After all, only in the US would such a disaster as Donald Trump exist. But that aside, and once more my apologies, the vast majority give the appearance of being at best shallow. of course there is the minority who manage to correlate corroborate and sift through the dross. Throughout history any advances in the norm of thinking people are the work of a small minority, frequently despised, often condemned and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people (Whatever that means) When ever this tiny minority is kept from creating, (or as sometimes happens) is driven out of society the vast populous sinks once more into 30 second sound bites and total interest in the Kardassions.
It is under these conditions that the FOA has been allowed to exist whereas in most other countries such an endeavor as Gogarty Marriot and the outright lies emanating from the rabid Knox supporters, would be laughed off the airwaves. Of course there are Americans who have an advanced education but sadly and once more this is in the minority and as I’m sure you will agree, in some quarters the term American Education is a contradiction in terms. When I was in University we had some American students taking courses. They had to work a lot harder than we did because up until then their status-quo had been viewed through different eyes. This does not mean to say that all Americans are uneducated, far from it, but consider Amanda Knox arriving in Perugia and all of a sudden being surrounded by people who had far more talent, were far more serious about education and seriously better traveled. As a result they were far better equipped to deal the outside world whereas with Knox who at the very least, was out of her depth and could only communicate through drugs and sex and expected the other girls to be of the same mind set. For the other girls that is, the outside world, being anywhere but inside the USA.

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 07/19/15 at 09:27 PM | #

I bought Hodges’ book on Amazon, and I’ve been reading portions of it on my Kindle. Quite interesting, how he analyzes AK’s email, sent Nov. 4, 2007, to many friends, family, and colleagues.

It’s interesting to re-read this email with Dr. Hodges’ insights. I’d always felt that the email showed how cold and unfeeling AK was about the murder of her “friend.” But Hodges really digs deep into AK’s subconscious, especially taking into account the many typos and mistakes AK made in this email she fired off in the middle of the night.

I have always thought the ad for a roommate found in Perugia that weekend was written by AK and RS. The coldness of it matched the coldness of this email. I was reminded of that by this excerpt from the email: “during this time i received calls from a lot of different people, family mostly of course, and i also talked with the rest. especially to find out what exactly was in merediths room whent hey opened it. apparently her body was laying under a sheet, and with her foot sticking out and there was a lot of blood. whoever had did this had slit her throat.”

This seems such a cold, unfeeling way of describing what for most people would be an extremely traumatic event that they could probably not even talk about for weeks, if not months or years. Especially what stands out for me is when AK says “to find out what exactly was in merediths room” - Meredith was already a “thing” to her, a “what.” I think most people would not speak that way so quickly about a true “friend” who was murdered.

I’m going to read the whole book end-to-end eventually, but those were my initial thoughts. Definitely an interesting read.

RIP Meredith Kercher.

Posted by Earthling on 07/21/15 at 12:58 AM | #

@ Grahame Rhodes

Amanda Knox was not well educated and not well prepared but that was her fault not the fault of the USA. We have plenty of world class institutions of higher learning, Harvard, Yale, and about 50 more people might or might not have heard of. There is no Łąck of depth and quality in American primary and secondary schools in America. On the contrary, we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to education. Many foreighners send their kids here to be educated. Once again, I have to point out that Amanda Knox represents only herself in failing to get a good education and in failing to play by the rules when studying abroad. She had no connection to her university, no scholarship, not enough money, etc. This is not the norm for American students studying abroad. This is her sole doing. She had real opportunities and she blew them off because she really wanted to travel and party. It has nothing to do with America. Thoughtful was an American who got a degree at Harvard and finished her studies at the University of Paris. That is a high level of success but similar experiences are more common than AmandaKnox’s scam. The USA does not have a second datÄ™ educational system. Quite the contrary.

Posted by JohnQ on 07/25/15 at 09:55 AM | #

Yes that’s right. It’s just that by and large the vast majority of US kids do even understand that other countries even exist and could care less anyway. Talk to some of them, if you can pry them away from their cell phones that is. Amanda Knox is a prime example of dumb, stupid and the belief that being American she is therefore better than anyone else. That was part of her hate for Meredith Kercher who was 100% better than Knox without even trying. In fact Meredith I’m sure was unaware than such a state of jealousy and hate that Knox had towards her even existed. This kind of thing is after all the Donald Trump syndrome because he believes that he is better than anyone else so therefore, the entire population of the world should bow down to him. This kind of view puzzles the rest of us since living among so many different countries in Europe and speaking several languages as a matter of course we don’t have to prove anything to others. This is called getting along with others and where good manners and honorifics still have a place in this world.
I’m sorry if this offends you but this is what people from other countries see. Oh sure there is Yale, Harvard, Princeton and a host of others, but the general population are for the most part satisfied with the consideration that the ‘Status Quo’ where fame and fortune are just a movie contract away is true to life. I am not saying that other countries do not have their problems with education, quite the contrary, but if you consider where the USA is on the list of education excellence in math and science world wide, it might give you pause.

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 07/25/15 at 11:13 PM | #
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