Amanda Knox

[LadyBeagleEyes]

Her appeal is being heard at the moment, and there is a good chance she'll be freed.
So who did kill Meredith?
If she and her ex boyfriend are deemed innocent, I hope the Italian police will continue to look into the case and get some justice for her.
I don't understand why they say the DNA is flawed, or have Knox's parents just managed to hire some very smart lawyers?
It's such a sad case.

Um Guede DID change his statement - several times.

Initially he said he was invited to the house by Meredith on a date. He went to the toilet and came back to find a "shadowy figure" with a knife stood over her body. Later on the "figure" turned into Sollecito, and later still Amanda was inserted into the story. Basically, the Italian authorities have given him a dream defence! He was there, yes - but it was the other's that killed her. I am "very sorry" for not coming to her rescue......

It looks like the public relations firm employed by the Knox family has been money well spent.

The door apparently had a dodgy latch. She noticed a small amount of blood. It is not THAT strange that she was thinking about it afterwards and put 2 and 2 together. Her behaviour does sound a bit odd, yes, but I think it is much more easily explained that the "sex game" scenario and talk of pagan scarifices etc that the prosecutors were throwing about in the early days of the investigation.

PR? I am not basing my thoughts on anything written in the newspapers. The plain facts of what happened, and the reviews of the evidence from BOTH sides are in the public domain.

There is also the fact that Knox claims to have gone to the house in the morning after the murder and showered and dressed there, yet the only DNA of hers left in the bathroom was DNA that was mixed in with a spot of meredith's blood in the sink. yet no-one cleaned the bathroom after Knox claimed to have been in it that morning. There were no fingerprints of hers in the bathroom either, despite her claiming to have showered in it.
She also admits taking a mop from the house, claiming she took it to her boyfriends despite him having stuff that could mop up a leak there.
And why would she put two and two together. When she called her flatmate no-one was worried about meredith, and there are no 'phone records of Knox trying to get hold of meredith that morning despite her claims she was worried. She had no more reason to be worried about meredith than she did of her forth flatmate.
Both her and RS also turned their 'phones off that night, despite 'phone records showing they did not normally do this. On a side note this is the sort of evidence that helped convict Levi Bellfield.
She has changed her story several times, once she admitted she was there then she backtracked. When asked why she lied she claimed she was physically assaulted by the police, her own defense have not talked about this or used it against the police or tried to file charges. In fact there are legal charges being made against the Knoxs for slandering the police.
She has changed her alibi, as has RS. Some of their alibi's have been contradicted by their phone records, Rs's father, and computer records.
A witness that put them at the same has not been as of yet discredited by the courts or had his evidence thrown out. the defence disagree with him, the prosecution agree with him.
The original experts claim there is DNA evidence against them. Two others say the evidence is not 100% reliable. It turns out these second witnesses have no practical experience of forensics. So again it is the first experts vs the second experts as both gave eidence in court, and neither had their evidence thrown out.
The second experts also claimed that the bra clasp with RS's DNA could have been contaminated, but could give no explaination why it would only have been contaminated with DNA from RS, and not anyone else such as the police, flatmates, forensic officers, prosecution etc who might have actually come into contact with it after the murder whereas RS was nowhere near the scene after Meredith was found, and claims to have never been at the scene at all. This does not support the theory it actually was contaminated.

The first expert has actually done work on several murder cases, and as she was witnessed by the police doing the work if the DNA evidence is found to be unreliable it will mean that hundreds of convicted criminals will have grounds to try to appeal as both the police and the DNA experts work has been found to be unreliable. As it was forensic work done under the watch of the police that determined Meredith had been sexually assaulted and had not consensually taken part in sexual activity with Guede, he will also have good grounds for an appeal. It will be very difficult for the courts to argue that only in the case of AK and RS were the police and experts incompetant, but everywhere else their work is sound.

Kelly - the bra clasp had 4 people's DNA on it. It was obviously contaminated.

Did you even read the Wiki link? All the phone calls were logged. There is a good explanantion as to why she changed her story - and the confession where she did so was not admissable in court for good reason. She knew full well that Meredith was supposed to there whilst the other 2 were away.

And her defence never mentioned the police treatment of her??? You are joking right? For one thing she had her sentence increased for making the claim - on the other hand, she received 40k for an abuse of her human rights!

And this mop she took - if it been used for a clean up in her own house (something there was no evidence of) presumably it would also have tested positive etc for blood?

I think ironically the media treatment of her will probably work in her favour now and she can use it in her defence.Whether or not she is 'odd' etc is not a basis for a conviction but she told so many lies and changed her story and behaved very inappropriately in the wake of MK death.But it is too risky to lock someone so young up based on gut feeling about her. IFWIW I think she was involved and one of the main players but the evidence is too patchy and so she will probably be released.

The first expert has actually done work on several murder cases, and as she was witnessed by the police doing the work if the DNA evidence is found to be unreliable it will mean that hundreds of convicted criminals will have grounds to try to appeal as both the police and the DNA experts work has been found to be unreliable.

Including the case of Heather Barnett presumably, seen as Stefanoni's forensics work was part of the prosecution's case that convicted Heather's killer.

Can anybody help a sickie out , did the independant experts claim that the forensics fell below the standards of ENFSI ?

Fastweb,
No, the independent experts claimed that international protocols were not followed, but there is no such thing as international protocols. There was no question that ENFSI were not followed. Stefanoni's work has never been questioned like this before, and in fact the only people questioning it now are theorists. However , if her evidence is deemed to be unreliable it will certainly open the door for many appeals including that of heather barnett's killer.

Porto,
There was only RS DNA found on the clasp, the independent witnesses were questioned about this, as they could not give any explaination as to how it was only contaminated with RS DNA. Even the independent witness have never said it was obviously contaminated, they have said it could be possible that it had been contaminated, but they could not say 100% whether it was or not.
Knox has not received compensation for human rights abuse. She is currently being sued for slander, as are her parents who are being sued for claiming she was physically assaulted by police. The defense have never tried to charge police with assault and have never claimed in court that the police assaulted her.
The mop she took was not found for testing, she just claimed she took it when asked where it was.

No, I am not basing my judgements of the case on wikipedia. Anyone is allowed to put what they want on wikipedia. It would be extremly foolish to base judgements on a case using information put up on wikipedia.

Noddy,
I agree that she should not be convicted for being odd, or even a horrible person. The press putting up pictures of her holding a gun trying to make out that foretold what she would do was just silly and desperation for a story. But the media did not give evidence in the trial, and in Italy two of the people who decide on guilt or not and talk to the other lay judges are professional judges who are not likely to be influenced by tabloid stories. many trials in Britain have had a lot of negative media coverage about the accused, such as Rose West and Levi Bellfield, but we trust the courts not to make judgements based on what the media says.

Porto,
The 40K you are speaking about was what Knox was told to pay in compensation to the man she falsly accused, it was not money she received.

Ok, so saying they did it, how did it happen? What was the weapon, what did they do with the clothes they were wearing, what were the timeframes? Where did they stand in the room and how does it fit with the injuries on Meredith? How did the bra clasp get DNA on but nowhere else? I've seen all this for the defence scenario and have been looking for the prosecution equivalents to no avail. Help me out please?

I don't think Amanda Knox's behaviour was odd at all. She returned to a student house to shower, wash her ears and change. She went in quickly, showered, thought a very small amount of blood might be from a period, went back to RS told him what she saw, they went back and then called the police.

Not odd at all. In a house where most people had gone away. Had the bathroom been coverred in blood then, yes, it would have been strange but the house did not look like a crime scene.

Girl arrives in Italy after graduation in US. Meets nice Italian boy 3 weeks later. Six days after that a drugs trafficker from the Ivory Coast breaks into another girl's flat and cuts her throat.

This is Italy, where vice is rife and justice is futile. And they believe in demons.

Dueling,
she did not call the police. At the time she claimed she did, but 'phone records did not support this. She says she went back say the door open, showered, and saw a little blood. She says at the time she thought nothing of it, but later called a flatmate to say that she was worried about meredith because of the blood and open door. I find the fact that only hours later she thought it meant something could have happend, yet had not tried to contact Meredith at all was odd. I do not think it odd that she did not think anything of it at the time, and if she had only worried about it after not being able to get hold of meredith i would not thought it odd. But nothing else happened, and yet suddenly she decided she was worried about meredith so told a flatmate, yet did not try to contact meredith, or go back to the flat and look for her.
To be honest this behaviour is odd, but some people are just odd, and dizzy. It only looks supicious when taken into consideration with the other evidence.
What i find more suspicious is the fact that despite the fact she claims to have come home and showered and washed her hair there was no evidence of her in the bathroom, not one scrap of DNA or fingerprint apart from some DNA that happened to be mixed in with a drop of meredith's blood in the sink. This is one of the points the prosecution have made.

Red,
here is a link to e BBC report just after the first trial.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8394110.stm

a couple of pages ago someone linked to an English translation of the court summery, where a description of the attack, and how it was carried out was given.
The prosecution have given a lot of details about how they think the attack took place, but there has not been a lot of media attention given to this.

what were their different/changing alibis? You say they changed all the time?

Sorry - Kelly I must have misread that today. I still stand by my POV that there is no reliable evidence against them, and no motive for them to have committed the crime.

I'm also thinking that too :(

They are using as evidence, DNA on a bra clasp that wasn't ID'd and bagged up until 46 days after the crime.

I mean...

Her DNA was found in various places in the bathroom. That was mentioned in the summary document. The prosecution alleged that she had vigorously scrubbed blood off her hands and feet and that the DNA was a result of the skin that was shed.

yes, I am sure they did find her DNA in the bathroom. Maybe I have misread that?

And why would you, at the tender age of 21, on your first time away from home, think it a fun 'sex game' to slit the throat of one of your friends?

Come on...

I always found the DNA evidence puzzling. She lived in that house, so surely you would expect her DNA to be in the bathroom.

There are things that she could be responsible for, such as the broken window glass being on top of the contents of the ransacked room, indicating a staged break-in by someone who was let in or had a key.