To ask if you think that Knox is guilty?

[superstarheartbreaker]

I have no idea but it seems that her kissing her boyfriend at the time was seen as suspicious whereas I don't think that this is suspicious at all. DNA is...kissing one's lover.no. It's not even that inappropriate to kiss ones lover in the face of tragedy.
Didn't she do cartwheels though?

I think if RS ends up going to prison for 25 years while AK is free then RS is going to be put under massive pressure to offer her up - it's her they want after all, much more than him.

But why, Nancy, if they think they all conspired?

Absolutely. From the latest trial (all the stuff Bongiorno and RS's Dad were saying about their roads going off in different directions, and the interview by the judge when he says Bongiorno asked the 2 accused were treated differently) it looks very much like those wheels are already in motion.

When RS was interviewed at length on my favourite TV show (you lot of amateur sleuths would love it!) last year, he was 100% prime time still in love with her. He didn't say so, but his eyes watered when he talked about her, and he talked about wanting to see her again, and it was just very evident he still felt very strongly. Now it's very much Amanda who?

anyone is going to feel hard done by if they're locked up and their co-accused is free to live their life.

I always assumed they were innocent because it all sounded so implausible. However having read a bit at the weekend from various sources I can see why the police thought they were guilty. She changed her story at least 3 times and RS gave her an alibi and then retracted it saying he had given it to her under duress and held to this for 4 years.
Of the two of him I think he is more unlikeable. He basically hung her out to dry figuring by that stage that the foreign woman was going to be very unpopular and he was going to drop her in it.
What is not in doubt, I think is that when they were questioned by the police at first they lied to them and then changed their stories when confronted with facts that contradicted them. Why do this?

Also the police thought they were acting oddly when they first saw them on the day of the murder and decided to follow them and tap their phones. This was both of them - not Knox doing cartwheels or anything else. I think this interesting. I doubt they would've suspected a flatmate and her boyfriend unless something made them suspicious.

I'm not sure that there is enough evidence to convict them but something is not right.

I think what is not right depends on whether you trust the police's version of events or not

I am definitely leaning toward guilty, although I haven't read everything about it yet, so I can't be sure.

This site is interesting: themurderofmeredithkercher.com/ and seems to be carefully composed from official sources/testimonies.

With a case like this, the media talk such nonsense (both guilty and not guilty biased!) that you really do have to look to original sources to form a proper opinion.

The thing that most surprised me was what they had to say about Knox's 'interrogation', which of course has been reported as 'lengthy and brutal', lasting 9 hours, after which she in desperation pointed the finger at Patrick, etc etc.

5 November 2007, 3 days after the body is found:

1. Police phone RS in the evening, and ask him to come down to the station to clear up some inconsistencies in his statements. He does, but finishes dinner with some friends first, so doesn't arrive until 10.40pm.

Amanda Knox's isn't asked to come down, but 'doesn't want to be alone' so accompanies him. She stays in the public waiting room, where she does some stretching/cartwheels/yoga (whatever you want to call it) and does some uni work. She also talks on the phone to her flatmate Filomena. This call begins at 10.29pm (important for anyone attacking the timeline below).

1. Faced with the inconsistencies, in the 50 minutes between 10.40pm and 11.30pm, RS decides to change his story and say Amanda left his flat at 9pm and the night of the murder and came back at 1am. IE, she was unaccounted for at the time of the murder.

1. At 11.30pm, AK is asked if she would mind answering some questions.

1. At 12.30am, the questioning begins, after an English interpreter arrives (total nonsense that she didn't have an interpreter - the woman testified at the trial to back up the police's version of events). Amanda is told RS has implicated her

1. At 1.45am, AK is signing a statement implicating Patrick, and admitting she was in the house at the time of the murder.

So hardly the story some are making out...

Read more at themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Amanda_Knox%27s_Confession

Vida, that page is run by the 'guilters' who are obsessed & a bit loopy. (Some of them very loopy)

There's another site called \link{http://murderofmeredithkercher.com\murderofmeredithkercher.com} which gives the other side

Best to read both for a more balanced view

No DNA in room/ of AK or RS.
How can there not be reasonable doubt?
To me all centers on lack of their DNA and loads of RGs..

That's my view too, Sapphire. No-one has been able to explain to me how AK and RS could have committed the crime without leaving DNA in the room when RG's was everywhere.

Thanks TheOneWithTheNicestSmile! I'll take a look at that. Like I say, I'm not decided yet, although I think there is an awful lot of things AK and RS have to explain away. There's certainly not 'no evidence' as some are screaming.

As a long time follower of the JonBenet Ramsey case, I know how the media can be manipulated by guilty people with enough money to pay for PR firms.

At the moment, I think the truth lies somewhere between 'they are totally innocent' and 'they are sex-game-playing psychopaths'.

As a few people have said, I think all three killers were very possibly out of their trees on drugs.

I can imagine Meredith (who had been out til 4am the night before, with friends on record saying she wanted an early night) being none too pleased at AK and two guys crashing into her house, an argument starting and going way too far. Maybe RS and AK didn't realise what a psycho Guede was, and it was all over before they knew it. I dunno.

Vida, do you have a theory about why there is none of AK's DNA at the crime scene?

I am NO expert on DNA transfer, but perhaps she wasn't involved so violently?

Also...

I know I've been warned about the objectivity of this website (themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Rudy_Hermann_Guede), but the facts seem to be linked to proper sources/testimony, although there may be some bias. It's interesting that they say traces of Guede's DNA were found on MK's handbag, on the cuff of the jumper she was wearing, on the right side of her bra and inside her. And also on toilet paper in the bigger bathroom in the flat.

So that's only four places in MK's bedroom. So I wouldn't consider that the room was 'covered' in his DNA either, suggesting DNA transfer isn't as easy as we may think?

Think of all the things he must have touched as they 'violently struggled' and he forcibly undressed her. His DNA clearly didn't transfer every time. So is it plausible that AK's DNA didn't transfer at all? Especially if she didn't have as much direct contact with MK? (the prosecution's theory is that Guede restrained MK while AK and RS stabbed her...)

I'm not saying I know, but just throwing it out there!

Um, his DNA was found in her vagina, wasn't it?

Yes Doctrine, as I mention above.

Which is interesting in itself, as RG's pre-arrest claim was that they had a assignation but he had no condoms so it had to be oral (a bit TMI, sorry) & then he had to use the loo & meanwhile someone else rang the bell, came in & raped & killed Meredith.

That's from the text of a Skype conversation between him (in Germany) & a friend in Perugia who was being used by the police to find out where he was

Amanda wouldn't have needed to ring the bell...

The whole story is full of holes

I don't know that everyone believes them to be guilty of murder. I think lots of people feel they know more - were present, were aware, left Rudy to it, whatever. Just not completely absent and unaware.
Also all this off their faces in drugs - no traces of anything other than marijuana was found in hair samples.

RG & MK were both caught on CCTV approaching the cottage

AK & RS weren't

So unless they were at the cottage all evening & never went to RS's house, how can they have been present?

It isn't just DNA, though. There is extensive evidence of RG's presence in the bedroom where the murder was committed - hairs, skin flakes, footprints, handprints, DNA, etc. There is no solid forensic evidence whatsoever of AK and RS being in that room. That cannot be explained by something like them not being involved so violently. The prosecution's explanation is that AK and RS cleaned crime scene, removing all forensic traces of their own involvement but leaving all the evidence of RG's involvement intact. That theory lacks credibility.

Whilst there can be other explanations forensic scientists will tell you that the most likely explanation is that AK and RS simply weren't there.

By the way, one of the samples of RG's DNA was recovered from inside the body.

Article in English in the Corriere della Sera here re some of reasons for decisions so far.

None of that seems to me to make AK or RS guilty of murder...

I don't think that AK is guilty.
I do find her slightly odd and cold, but I do not think that makes her guilty of murder.

I read that her parents/family said she was quite naïve and didn't pick up on a lot of social ques and they were reluctant for her to go to Italy in the first place.

I believe that there is reasonable doubt and that people are being manipulated by the press.

I can understand someone who maybe isn't very savvy changing stories or feeling under pressure to implicated or exaggerate certain aspects to exclude themselves as a suspect when they know they haven't done it.
It is suspicious but explainable imo.

I've never heard RG's hair was found - do you have a source for that?

Yes, he also left ONE bloody handprint on MK's pillow. And footprints leading directly to the front door.

Of course, that's enough to convict him. Not my point, in case anyone thought it was. He's guilty.

Point is apart from these easily avoidable traces (it's not difficult to avoid getting blood on your hand and then on to a sheet, or to avoid getting blood on your feet), there are only FOUR 'uncontrollable' traces of Guede in the bedroom (DNA on bag, bra, cuff of sweater, inside her). The room and body weren't 'covered' in 'extensive' traces of his presence.

There is 'overwhelming evidence of his guilt', yes. People are getting that confused with 'overwhelming physical evidence', which there is not. Although the evidence is damning.

Touch DNA (AKA from skin cells) clearly doesn't go everywhere. He obviously didn't just touch those four things/areas. Yet DNA didn't transfer anywhere else.

Like I say, if Knox didn't touch as much as Guede or wasn't quite as careless. it's feasible she wouldn't leave any trace.

Think about it.

Oh, and the most pro-Knox website of them all confirms the evidence Guede left: www.injusticeinperugia.org/rudy.html

Of course, AK's and RS's bloody footprints were found too, in the hallway and bathroom, although there have been attempts to discredit this.