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.

Dueling,
They only found a small amount of her DNA in the bathroom, some blood on the tap, and the other DNA was mixed with meredith's blood. In cases where someone had come showered, washed, and washed their hair in a room without cleaning it well afterwards there would be a great deal more DNA normally and certainly a huge amount of fingerprints.

As for their alibis, they have given several for instance RS claimed he was on his computer all night, which he was not. If you look at the english translation of the court summary a few pages ago you will see it describes the several alibis there gave in regards to when they were at Rs's place.
Abendbrot,
The clasp was found in a sealed crime scene that limited people had access to, and where nothing was taken in. Finding evidence like this is not unusual. In the heather barnet case for instance evidence was used from a decade ago. Especially now DNA analysis has advanced so much with techniques such as PCR (where DNA is made to replicate itself) it is not uncommon for the police to go back and try to relook at evidence for DNA that can now be retrieved. If it is decided that any evidence that is not looked at straight away cannot be used there will be a lot of appeals.

There is a site here that has some links to the court translations and reports.
truejustice.org/ee/index.php

I do not really like this site as it is very bias against Knox, and is quite personal rather than always sticking plainly to the facts. But it does have translations of articles on the case that have been in other countries and it is interesting to see their perspective, and it has links to the reports and things like that. As I said it is bias, and so the actual opinions are not realible, but ignore the opinion pieces and look factual items. The BBC is better generally, but not as quick to use and I could not find links to the court reports on it.

the true justice for meredith kercher site seem to think the bathroom dna is of significant interest.

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.

So there is no body to oversee, validate and design protocols for the "international standards" the independant experts were talking about ? They have no clear and transparent organisation of... origin ?

But there is a recognised body in Europe, ENFIS, and there has been no doubt raised that the forensics collected/tested is up to their standards ?

So either the media representation of the extent to which the defence punched holes in the prosecution's case has been wildly overblown.

Or

The defence did punch holes through it with..international protocols (of origins yet to be established)... becuase the judge (or the judges plus lay judges) will decide/ has decided that the so called international protocols are more relevant in a European court of law than those of ENFIS, and we are going to see a postive tsumani of what, thousands ? tens of thpusands ? of cases being retried in all European countries where ENFSI is used to determine forensic standards ?

And (retropectively ?) these international protocols (of orgins yet to be established) will become the new standard to which all past and future cases in Europe must now adhere ?

With or without them having a some kind of offical body to oversee, validate and publish them ?

Am I warm ?

Or is that just my fever ?

How many countries use ENFIS ?

I was really looking for something to counter this www.salem-news.com/articles/december042010/amanda-know.php

WARNING graphic crime scene photos in this link.

It's the actual crime scene and the time of death that I think completely exonerate rs and ak.

Knox had 53 hours of police interrogation over four days. That's over 12 hours every day. You don't do that to a 20 year old girl if you want her to tell the truth.

That prosecutor Comodi is completely unprofessional in all the things she has said - quite unbelievable that any of this is taken seriously at all.

Mindthegapp - Rudy Guede forced her into her bedroom through the window, hence her blood and his blood on the window. Perhaps she refused his advances - he raped and murdered her, escaped out of the window.

Perhaps he called his wealthy industrialist adoptive father and asked for advice on what to do next?

abendt,
That is really racist, you are saying that the fact he is from the ivory coast should be used against him. And as for him dealing drugs why should that be used against him anymore than Knox being a drug user should be used against her. America has killers you know, plenty of which are female and under twenty, and it has committed plenty of human rights abuses but no-one is saying Knox should not be believed becuase she is american.
Oh and Guede was actually brought up in Italy by Italians, not that his nationality or race should make a difference.
I hardly think that someone who thinks nationality should be used to help determine guilt can accuse anyone else of being unprofessional.

Fast,
Although there are no international protocols as of yet, it is possible to get international certification which the forensics in this case did get. the ENFIS is used all over Europe I believe and there has been no question its guidelines were not followed. And you are right the implications for giving a not guilty verdict on the basis of the DNA analysis are huge. PCR, the replication of small amounts of DNA is used very widely in Europe so if the judges here decide it is not reliable it would mean that thousands of cases could have room for appeal. It would also put any cases where the original experts gave evidence under the spotlight.

Red,
Can i just ask why the time of death exonerates AK and RS?

abendt,
There was no blood on any window, the window in Meredith's room was not even broken. meredith had not been raped.

re Salem news article

From the authors bio

-

My 28 year career as a Forensic Engineer did not include the investigation of person on person crimes. However, I had extensive experience at reconstructing complex incidents, evaluating police investigations and reports, evaluating opposing experts? investigations and reports, and evaluating witness statements and testimony. I have also extensive experience in evaluating and reconstructing complex incidents from photos. Finally, I have had some success in finding glaring errors and mistakes on the part of the investigations and analysis by both the police and opposing expert investigators.

---

This is what a forensic engineer is

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_engineering

Forensic engineering is the investigation of materials, products, structures or components that fail or do not operate or function as intended, causing personal injury or damage to property. The consequences of failure are dealt with by the law of product liability. The field also deals with retracing processes and procedures leading to accidents in operation of vehicles or machinery. The subject is applied most commonly in civil lawcases, although may be of use in criminal law cases. Generally the purpose of a Forensicengineering investigation is to locate cause or causes of failure with a view to improve performance or life of a component, or to assist a court in determining the facts of anaccident. It can also involve investigation of intellectual property claims, especiallypatents.

So while I'm sure he was very very good at his job, and did assist the police with lots of complex incidents (like structures collapsing on people etc) and by doing that job he became super good at anaylsing photos and working out what happened...

...I'm just really not that convinced that the big hole in his expereince re person on person crime, leaves him in a postion to make the most accurate assessment of the photos and confidently state who did what to whom.

But I could be wrong.

Cos all I did was read his bio and google what a forensic engineer was.

A forensic engineer would not be qualified to speak on forensic genetics, or evidence gathering, any more than a forensic scientist, or forensic accountant, or forensic IT specialist could comment on the forensics used to determine if a structure was sound.

What salem article was this, could you post a link or reference.

Its Ok, I found it. His article is cringe worthy. Why is an engineer qualified to talk about biology, or physical confrontations? People hear the word forensics and they assume someone knows everything abour crime and its analysis. All forensic means is that someone puts their skills in thei specific field to investigate suspicions of crime in their particular field. So a forensic accountant is just an accountant woudl would look at someone's accounts to see if anything dodgy had been going on, a forensic engineer is just an engineer that looks at structures and the like in the same manner. They certainly would have no ability to look at a murder scene and tell people what happened, any more than an engineer could go into a hospital lab and tell scientists the results of smear tests by looking at the slide etc.

It links back to injustice in Perugia. Not a great source but I thought the prosecution might have done the same somewhere - then you can compare the differences.

Sorry kelly2000

I was answering this post referencing the salem peice

---

I was really looking for something to counter this www.salem-news.com/articles/december042010/amanda-know.php

WARNING graphic crime scene photos in this link.

It's the actual crime scene and the time of death that I think completely exonerate rs and ak.

--

and forgot to mention it when I posted.

In my defense I'm full of a cough medicine that makes me well befuddled.

No drug-fuelled sex games? Where did that evidence go? Or was there ever any in the first place?

I think Knox is guilty and yet will go free - and become a celebrity and a millionaire by selling her story.

Do you think someone guilty of such horrible crime could ever live normally without one day cracking and spilling it all out?

And no broken window? Broken window with blood anyone? The door was locked? It happened at 9.00? In the early hours of the morning? I time of death suddenly that difficult to determine? Drug-fuelled? No drugs tests?

Really...

And all through this ridiculous spectacle of what they call evidence, a woman has been in jail for five years. She has lost five years of what were the best years of my life, and her friend is still dead. But still the tabloids and the melodramatic prosecutors bore us all with their tales of conjecture.

It has already been linked to in this thread, but if anyone didnt see the link earlier here is the full sentancing report on this case, which details the evidence that was considered. It is translated from the Italian by a group supportive of the Kercher family. The orignial, untranslated, italian version is also available.

Abendbrot - you are sounding a bit deranged.

Details evidence? They've been doing that for five years now, and still not found anything that's watertight. Why don't they just leave her alone?

Noddyholder,
Rosemary West has never admitted her crimes, and her crimes were beyond horrendous. Neither has Peter Tobin. Myra Hindley, who was only a 23 year old young woman with no history of violence, when she was arrested, only admitted her crimes years later when she realised she was not going to get out unless she admitted it and repented publicly.

I suppose it depends on the person, if i was involved in something like that i would crack and be in tears in about five minutes of speaking to the police, but then i would never do anything like that. I suppose if someone is evil enough to actually do something like that then maybe they are quite happy keeping quiet. Some people have no empathy for anyone else, and do not care about their victim only their own fate.

Kelly has mentioned the cases of Levi Belfield and Rose West with regards to DNA evidence or lack of. In both cases they had "form" for behaviour or crimes prior to their incarceration. This is NOT the case here. If there was overwhelming evidence to show that AK/RS were involved, I would be prepared to overcome my belief that 2 young people, with no prior history of deviant behaviour could not have done this.

But there is none. The profile of the crime fits with young, single male. The forensics point to young, single male. All the rest is pretty circumstantial and imho has been extrapolated to fit the original 'scenario' as opposed to the facts.