Continuation Part 4: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

[anglolawyer]

Sorry, I have rechecked Massei on the handling of the clasp on 02-03 Nov 2007

P.200 'the small piece of bra was repositioned where it had been found and in other words, on the floor, on top of which the pillow was found, on which the lifeless body of Meredith had been placed.'

So it was handled.

[Charlie Wilkes]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Answer: no. On 18th Dec 2007 the bedroom door was held open by the wardrobe doors which had been removed and were leaning against it. See this photograph taken on that date.


http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...type=1&theater

Therefore, contamination while the clasp was inside the apartment had to pre-date 18th Dec 2007 but there is no record of the clasp being handled on 02/11/2007.

There's no record, but the clasp was found under a pile of debris several feet from where it was photographed on Nov. 2.

A lot of undocumented activity took place between the video/photos shot on Nov. 2-3, which show the apartment more or less tidy except for the murder room, and the Dec. 18 video/photos, which show the place in a shambles.

Here is a low-res cut that includes both parts of the Dec. 18 video:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/misce...opralluogo.mp4

I think it's entirely possible the police planted the evidence, perhaps by rubbing the clasp against an article of Raffaele's clothing and then putting it back on the floor. But with this kind of chaotic, undisciplined trampling of a crime scene, random contamination is also possible.

[RoseMontague]

Originally Posted by Grinder

Thanks Rose. I knew about that interview but some of the outtakes from the book have conversations that only the family and lawyers could have known and they are not things the family would have told Follain. I could try to find them but I'm pretty sure you've seen them.

What i can tell you is that contrary to what PQ wrote about the reasons behind recent defense lawyers strike in Italy, one of the things that was mentioned was the prosecution violating lawyer/client privacy with things like seizing documents and recording conversations, including wiretapping phone calls.

[Draca]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Answer: no. On 18th Dec 2007 the bedroom door was held open by the wardrobe doors which had been removed and were leaning against it. See this photograph taken on that date.

The wardrobe doors are moved from being in front of the bedroom door long before the bra clasp was collected. It is very possible that one of the several officers that touched the bra clasp had touched the door handle first.

[Kaosium]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

That's just it. I don't believe Raffaele was there. I have no problem with Stefanoni looking stupid to do such a poor job of evidence tampering. The world is not perfect. People screw up. I am not a scientist (some would say: nor is she) so I am not in a position to judge just how bad a job she made of fabricating the evidence but the job she did was good enough: they were convicted after all, it took a massive effort to get that undone and it aint over yet. And why is being an incompetent scientist inconsistent with being an incompetent fabricator of evidence?

You're right, it's not! I've often thought it would be funny if she tried to 'add' Raffaele's DNA to an already contaminated sample. I suppose that's not actually funny, but I laugh sometimes so I don't cry.

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

I don't buy sneezes, or DNA on the door handle transferred to the clasp. Others will have touched that handle after Raffaele, probably including the guy who actually broke the door down It's all just too convenient. Someone who knows more about this stuff than me recently said they would have used Raffaele's toothbrush to apply the DNA and I chanced to come across a reference to that very object in Massei just the other day. Big deal. It just makes me smell a rat.

The most likely source of contamination with LCN-DNA testing is the lab itself, which in this case wasn't in the slightest prepared for the 'work' she was doing:

Originally Posted by Conti-Vecchiotti

3.6 Contamination: in its recommendations for the interpretation of mixtures, the DNA Commission of the ISFG gives the following definition of contamination: “DNA introduced after the crime and originating from a source not related to the crime scene: investigators, laboratory technicians, laboratory instrumentation” (Howitt T., 2003; Gill P., Kirkham A., 2004).

This is a very restricted definition of the source of contamination; in fact, low-level contaminant DNA may derive from reagents and other laboratory consumables, from laboratory staff, and from cross-contamination from sample to sample.

Many LCN samples are ‘touch samples’, and therefore low levels of DNA originating from environmental contamination at the crime scene may, for example, be identified on the item . In addition, contamination can happen during the collection and handling of samples. Therefore, the appearance of allele drop-in can be both intrinsic to the samples and induced during collection at the crime scene.

Predicting the probability of drop-in based exclusively on experimental data may thus not be useful in simulating the circumstances in which drop-in may have occurred. A further difficulty, particularly apparent in mixtures, lies in determining which allele constitutes a drop-in. In fact, these difficulties tend to create bias in deciding whether or not there is support for contamination.

Statements about a profile obtained from the sample under examination regarding the determination as to which is a true allele and which a drop-in, must necessarily be made without knowledge of the suspect’s profile; only in such a way, in fact, can a qualitatively unimpeachable and unbiased approach to the interpretation of the profile from the sample be guaranteed. Interpreting a profile from a sample with the suspect’s reference profile to hand is indicative of a biased approach, and is in total contrast to the absolutely objective nature of forensic science.

Due to the limitations of LCN typing, extreme care needs to be taken not to overstep quality interpretation practices, in order to ensure that interpretive error is minimized.

As well as the risks caused by handling of the samples, the analysis of such a small amount of starting material inevitably means an exaggeration of stochastic phenomena in those samples. Increasing the sensitivity of the system will also increase the risk of contamination in the samples being examined (Budowle B. et al., 2009).

(emphasis retained)

The reason for those special lab conditions with LCN/LT DNA testing is that they're basically looking for contamination level DNA. If it shows up on a HCN DNA test it won't show up above the stochastic 'noise' level, so those conditions aren't as necessary. Which, come to think of it, might actually suggest she might not been able to avoid getting those other two (or however many more) male profiles mixed in with Raffaele's doing the test the way she did in that lab!

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Things don't pan out smoothly in real life. I imagine Mignini relaxing in his armchair through November and early December waiting for the forensics to come in to confirm his groundless fantasy, not plotting a frame up. Then - nothing. Not one single cell. So they have to go back and damn well find something and it had better be something on Raf as they already have the double DNA knife for Amanda (that one was contamination imho).

Regarding the knife, my guess is that was a bluff created with a run through a contaminated machine, a failed 'negative control' as it were, and was simply to force a confession out of them. I suspect they never thought it would reach a real trial, they'd confess and fast-track and accept their 'guilt.' If you look at when it was originally announced, which off the top of my head was ~November 14th, it was in the middle of all the lies and mistakes reported to the press which made the guilt of Amanda (especially) seem like a forgone conclusion. They're sitting in prison seeing this on TV every day, and had they been guilty it ought to have caused them to think there was no hope at all, which may well have been all it was designed to do, initially at least. Then, of course, they didn't actually find any real evidence so they had to 'manufacture' some with forensic sophistry and quite possibly slight of hand on that second trip out there--like you just detailed.

I don't think it's a coincidence that trip happened the day after the Sollecitos went on Telenorbo and exposed those shoe prints as not being Raffaele's. You're highly likely right, at that point they needed something on Raffaele or they might have had to let him go. They also ended up needing the knife on Amanda at that point too, because they just couldn't find the 'evidence' they 'knew' that 'had' to be there.

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

And not just anything, like the lamp (he might have touched that when it was in Amanda's room) but something for which there could be no innocent explanation - the clasp is perfect. There is probably even a reason why it's the hook and not the fabric which you scientists out there might turn your minds to (the hook which was allowed to rust).

Stupid people are stupid when they are performing bad science as well as when they evidence tampering. That part is not a problem at all.

I got to thinking about it and I wonder if the concept of 'plausible deniability' is what caused those two items to be 'produced' in the manner they were? Apparently Italy has a cultural tradition of 'fake stupid' (how could we be corrupt, can't you see how stupidly we did it?) which seems to me a similar concept.

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Can you refer me to what Frank said about the lamp?

A number of times when subtly suggesting there might be more to this story, such as his hints of someone rubbing a shirt against something, he's mentioned the lamp. I've never quite been able to figure out what he was hinting at, nor can I remember with any certainty when it might have come up.

[halides1]

Originally Posted by RoseMontague

Every time I watch that video, I become more convinced in fabrication.

RoseMontague,

The only thing that makes me hesitate is that they also made it a point of showing the other items in the other videos, although with other items I was under the impression that they made less of a production out of it. I think that there is a good chance that the evidence was fabricated (and no one should be embarrassed to say so), but I also think that secondary or tertiary transfer is possible.

[halides1]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

@Halides and Charlie Wilkes

Wasn't there more of Raffaele's DNA on the clasp than other males? I have no idea how it is possible to reach such a conclusion but I keep reading that (or think I am reading that) in posts from 'scientific' persons. The heights of the peaks in the egrams indicate the amount of DNA contributing to the peak. If all the high peaks happen to coincide with Raffaele's profile then I am assuming that's how it is possible to say more or less unequivocally it's his DNA, albeit mixed with other, lesser contributors.

anglolawyer,

I need to review the YSTR work, but I have been under the weather, so that will have to wait. My recollection is that there was more of Raffaele's profile than others, but I am of the opinion that the relative quantities are not as significant as the fact that the other DNA is there at all.

This link allows one to see some of the autosomal e-grams. I always have a hard time finding it, and I thought perhaps others did as well. I just casually looked over Rep. 177 from Filomena's room again, and it looks as if there are additional alleles, beyond Meredith's and Amanda's.

[RoseMontague]

Here is what Frank said about the lamp:

Quote:

So, Mignini knows who he can thank if he becomes the most unpopular judge in the world. Keep on believing them, Giuliano. Don’t investigate them. Don’t ask yourself why the November 6 fax was sent. Don’t ask yourself where the DNA comes from. Don’t ask yourself what was the lamp doing there, stuck under Meredith's door. Keep on believing them, Perugia.

It may be cryptic but it is clear that Frank believes something fishy with the lamp.

[Dan O.]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Sorry, I have rechecked Massei on the handling of the clasp on 02-03 Nov 2007

P.200 'the small piece of bra was repositioned where it had been found and in other words, on the floor, on top of which the pillow was found, on which the lifeless body of Meredith had been placed.'

So it was handled.

That paragraph also mentions "the second inspection on December 18" in the immediately preceding sentence so it is inconclusive as to which date the "repositioned" refers.

I had noticed in examining the photos of the clasp positioned under the pillow, that the weave pattern of the pillow case imprinted in the blood on the floor appears to go right under the bra clasp as if it were never there.

Perhaps I just don't have a high enough resolution copy of those photos.

[christianahannah]

Originally Posted by halides1

RoseMontague,

The only thing that makes me hesitate is that they also made it a point of showing the other items in the other videos, although with other items I was under the impression that they made less of a production out of it. I think that there is a good chance that the evidence was fabricated (and no one should be embarrassed to say so), but I also think that secondary or tertiary transfer is possible.

Fabricated meaning how? I'm not sure I understand what you mean the word to imply.

I think there were technical consultants for the defense present (Vinci and I think Potenza) on December 18 along with a television monitor in a van so the various parties could view what was going on inside of the cottage, particularly so, inside of Meredith's room.

If there were defense consultants inside the cottage, along with defense people viewing the searching of the cottage on December 18 (all this I am not 100% certain), hopefully nothing would have been done in an untoward manner during the searching and collecting of evidence while they were there, and if so, they would have objected vigorously to the search, collection, and evidence appearing out of thin air.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by halides1

RoseMontague,

The only thing that makes me hesitate is that they also made it a point of showing the other items in the other videos, although with other items I was under the impression that they made less of a production out of it. I think that there is a good chance that the evidence was fabricated (and no one should be embarrassed to say so), but I also think that secondary or tertiary transfer is possible.

Let's assume innocence for RS & AK and a negligent absence of correct anti-contamination procedures (two very acceptable assumptions with a high probability of accordance with reality). How come the only two objects that get contaminated are the knife and the hook? That seems to have an extremely low probability. Surely, there should also be contamination in benign places too.

The items are what you would expect if you were writing a crude script. You could make it a musical and sing it:

Amanda on the handle,
Meredith on the blade,
Raffaele on the hook
and now we've got it made.

And in no case is there any material left for anyone else to see when they come along later. Nor has Stefanoni any cytological test results to show what she sampled, just 'presumed' exfoliated cells and 'presumed' haematic substance.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by Kaosium

The most likely source of contamination with LCN-DNA testing is the lab itself, which in this case wasn't in the slightest prepared for the 'work' she was doing

You quote a passage from C-V which sort of reminds me of the impression I get reading their report and Hellman-Zanetti. They are all going out of their way to use the most neutral language but the effort is just too much and their real thoughts keep breaking through. Stefanoni's failure to mention the Qubit Fluorometer being characterised as 'an understandable lapse of memory' is a good example.

It's interesting to imagine her trial for perjury: she would attribute everything to (innocent) contamination and the prosecutor could counter with her own arguments against that possibility. How would she wriggle out of that?

Originally Posted by Kaosium

The reason for those special lab conditions with LCN/LT DNA testing is that they're basically looking for contamination level DNA. If it shows up on a HCN DNA test it won't show up above the stochastic 'noise' level, so those conditions aren't as necessary. Which, come to think of it, might actually suggest she might not been able to avoid getting those other two (or however many more) male profiles mixed in with Raffaele's doing the test the way she did in that lab!

I have wondered why it had to be LCN quantities. Why not slap on a nice healthy daub of stuff and then 'detect' it? Maybe HCN quantities carry too high a risk of repeatability?

Originally Posted by Kaosium

Regarding the knife, my guess is that was a bluff created with a run through a contaminated machine, a failed 'negative control' as it were, and was simply to force a confession out of them. I suspect they never thought it would reach a real trial, they'd confess and fast-track and accept their 'guilt.' If you look at when it was originally announced, which off the top of my head was ~November 14th, it was in the middle of all the lies and mistakes reported to the press which made the guilt of Amanda (especially) seem like a forgone conclusion. They're sitting in prison seeing this on TV every day, and had they been guilty it ought to have caused them to think there was no hope at all, which may well have been all it was designed to do, initially at least. Then, of course, they didn't actually find any real evidence so they had to 'manufacture' some with forensic sophistry and quite possibly slight of hand on that second trip out there--like you just detailed.

That's an interesting and persuasive thought. In one of the books (maybe Follain or Burleigh) we have Mignini puzzling in early December - why haven't they cracked and started ratting on each other? Don't ask me how the author knows, but it is one of the biggest problems for me (as I can believe it was for Mig) that no defence strategy emerged from either defendant beyond 'I'm innocent'. It's almost as if they really were innocent or something. If, as I think Mig was in late 2007, you are convinced of their guilt then this irrational adherence to a hopeless strategy in the face of DNA(!!!!) evidence must have been really baffling.

Originally Posted by Kaosium

I don't think it's a coincidence that trip happened the day after the Sollecitos went on Telenorbo and exposed those shoe prints as not being Raffaele's. You're highly likely right, at that point they needed something on Raffaele or they might have had to let him go. They also ended up needing the knife on Amanda at that point too, because they just couldn't find the 'evidence' they 'knew' that 'had' to be there.

Conti-Vechiotti record somewhere that a request to return to the apartment was made on the 13th Dec and it probably takes a few days to organise and equip a team like the one which conducted the 18th Dec operation.

Originally Posted by Kaosium

I got to thinking about it and I wonder if the concept of 'plausible deniability' is what caused those two items to be 'produced' in the manner they were? Apparently Italy has a cultural tradition of 'fake stupid' (how could we be corrupt, can't you see how stupidly we did it?) which seems to me a similar concept.

Pretty subtle if that's how things really work. One thing I am sure was not in their heads in December 2007 was that the 7th cavalry was on the far side of the hill about to make its entrance. To Anglicise the image, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. This is another answer to the problem of why they didn't make a better job of it.

Originally Posted by Kaosium

A number of times when subtly suggesting there might be more to this story, such as his hints of someone rubbing a shirt against something, he's mentioned the lamp. I've never quite been able to figure out what he was hinting at, nor can I remember with any certainty when it might have come up.

One for another day then. Thanks.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by halides1

anglolawyer,

I need to review the YSTR work, but I have been under the weather, so that will have to wait. My recollection is that there was more of Raffaele's profile than others, but I am of the opinion that the relative quantities are not as significant as the fact that the other DNA is there at all.

This link allows one to see some of the autosomal e-grams. I always have a hard time finding it, and I thought perhaps others did as well. I just casually looked over Rep. 177 from Filomena's room again, and it looks as if there are additional alleles, beyond Meredith's and Amanda's.

Just so you understand the layman's perspective (well, this layman anyway) interpretation of the egrams is one of the hardest things to understand because so much judgment and experience seem to enter into it. One of the clasp loci has 7 peaks. Does this mean 7 (or more) individuals or are some of these false peaks?

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by Draca

The wardrobe doors are moved from being in front of the bedroom door long before the bra clasp was collected. It is very possible that one of the several officers that touched the bra clasp had touched the door handle first.

Ah, OK. But doesn't the door itself remain open throughout?

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by Charlie Wilkes

There's no record, but the clasp was found under a pile of debris several feet from where it was photographed on Nov. 2.

A lot of undocumented activity took place between the video/photos shot on Nov. 2-3, which show the apartment more or less tidy except for the murder room, and the Dec. 18 video/photos, which show the place in a shambles.

Here is a low-res cut that includes both parts of the Dec. 18 video:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/misce...opralluogo.mp4

I think it's entirely possible the police planted the evidence, perhaps by rubbing the clasp against an article of Raffaele's clothing and then putting it back on the floor. But with this kind of chaotic, undisciplined trampling of a crime scene, random contamination is also possible.

Then innocent objects should be contaminated too.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by RoseMontague

Follain did the interview with Amanda's parents, the one they got sued over. They repeated what Amanda said and Follain repeated what they said. Follain somehow escaped getting into similar legal troubles with the Italian prosecutors.

Originally Posted by halides1

anglolawyer,

I need to review the YSTR work, but I have been under the weather, so that will have to wait. My recollection is that there was more of Raffaele's profile than others, but I am of the opinion that the relative quantities are not as significant as the fact that the other DNA is there at all.

This link allows one to see some of the autosomal e-grams. I always have a hard time finding it, and I thought perhaps others did as well. I just casually looked over Rep. 177 from Filomena's room again, and it looks as if there are additional alleles, beyond Meredith's and Amanda's.

As it's fresh in mind and in case it is relevant, I will mention here that Stefanoni referred in her evidence (as recorded in Massei) to a worldwide database of 15,900 Y-haplotypes and that neither Raffaele's nor Rudy's featured in it.

[Charlie Wilkes]

Originally Posted by christianahannah

Fabricated meaning how? I'm not sure I understand what you mean the word to imply.

I think there were technical consultants for the defense present (Vinci and I think Potenza) on December 18 along with a television monitor in a van so the various parties could view what was going on inside of the cottage, particularly so, inside of Meredith's room.

If there were defense consultants inside the cottage, along with defense people viewing the searching of the cottage on December 18 (all this I am not 100% certain), hopefully nothing would have been done in an untoward manner during the searching and collecting of evidence while they were there, and if so, they would have objected vigorously to the search, collection, and evidence appearing out of thin air.

???

Look at the video I linked above. The place was trashed when they arrived on Dec. 18. Somebody had...

- emptied the contents of drawers onto the kitchen table,

- dragged Meredith's mattress into the foyer,

- pulled all of her clothing out of her wardrobe and piled it on her bed,

- stuffed the pillow that had been in the floor into the wardrobe,

- shoved all her shoes and boots under the bed,

- created a pile of junk on and around her desk, from which the bra fastener was eventually retrieved, on the other side of the room from where it was photographed on Nov. 3.

You seem determined to nurture the fantasy that this investigation was handled professionally and in an orderly fashion. But the video and the photos and every other scrap of tangible evidence show the exact opposite - a frenzy of chaos and incompetence, a mad quest to back up the fable they put out at a press conference on November 6. Any kind of contamination or tampering could have taken place.

[Charlie Wilkes]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Let's assume innocence for RS & AK and a negligent absence of correct anti-contamination procedures (two very acceptable assumptions with a high probability of accordance with reality). How come the only two objects that get contaminated are the knife and the hook? That seems to have an extremely low probability. Surely, there should also be contamination in benign places too.

I think contamination is the most likely explanation for the mixed DNA on Filomena's floor - not benign according to the prosecutor, but not as incriminating as it would have seemed had this result come from Meredith's room.

Most of the samples were taken from an area of the house shared by Amanda and Meredith, so their DNA was getting spread around. Raffaele's DNA would have been present in that environment, but only in a few random places. Contamination would have been less likely, but, in an investigation handled as poorly as this one, entirely possible in any given sample.

Which is not to say that the bra fastener wasn't tampered with deliberately. We'll just never know one way or the other, unless someone talks.

[Grinder]

If Amanda's DNA was not found in the bathroom and the hallway the PGP would say it is proof of a cleanup. Because the only DNA from Raffaele was found on the cigarette the PGP claim that the contamination would have had to have come from "flying" from it. They ignore the fact that the ILE didn't test much in Amanda's room as they even admitted "evidence" found there would have no probative value.

I don't believe that evidence was planted on the clasp because they would have put an abundant amount on it. Although countering with the fact that ILE was so lacking in ability they didn't achieve their objective could be a winning argument. They certainly had plenty of access to RS's DNA.

I'm also humored by the PGP argument that the cottage was sealed for the 47 days between searches. Does anybody really believe PLE didn't have access to it?

The idea that it would take a wide conspiracy to have "fudged" the evidence is also without merit. Stefanoni alone could have rigged the results. One ILE person could have done what was needed. I still think that it is more likely they are incompetent.

[Kaosium]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

You quote a passage from C-V which sort of reminds me of the impression I get reading their report and Hellman-Zanetti. They are all going out of their way to use the most neutral language but the effort is just too much and their real thoughts keep breaking through. Stefanoni's failure to mention the Qubit Fluorometer being characterised as 'an understandable lapse of memory' is a good example.

I especially like the parts where she all of a sudden becomes the 'technical consultant'--you know it's about to get good!

Another good part is when they record that she spoke up about them not using the fume hood. They leave it there without comment but if you look into I do believe you'll find she had it backwards: that kind of fume hood would create a vacuum and thus draw potential contaminants into the area which is supposed to be 'beyond sterile.' She 'corrected' them by telling them to do the opposite of what should have been done!

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

It's interesting to imagine her trial for perjury: she would attribute everything to (innocent) contamination and the prosecutor could counter with her own arguments against that possibility. How would she wriggle out of that?

I told Machiavelli that almost a year ago now at the IIP site--I think he thought I was joking. I wasn't.

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

I have wondered why it had to be LCN quantities. Why not slap on a nice healthy daub of stuff and then 'detect' it? Maybe HCN quantities carry too high a risk of repeatability?

Plausible deniability? I dunno for sure, but imagine if the judge had allowed the computer to be sent to Toshiba and the data recovered showing interaction all night long, or something else emerging proving beyond doubt they couldn't have been there. There might have been some 'splaining to do then!

Originally Posted by Anglo Lawyer

That's an interesting and persuasive thought. In one of the books (maybe Follain or Burleigh) we have Mignini puzzling in early December - why haven't they cracked and started ratting on each other? Don't ask me how the author knows,

He had a source 'close to the prosecution' and was pretty close himself from what I gather from those who observed him with Monica Napoleoni in court and socializing elsewhere. (there's like pictures and everything!) It would hardly surprise me he had information not available to others, and bossman's state of mind is often a subject expounded upon by underlings in any environment.

Originally Posted by Anglo Lawyer

but it is one of the biggest problems for me (as I can believe it was for Mig) that no defence strategy emerged from either defendant beyond 'I'm innocent'. It's almost as if they really were innocent or something. If, as I think Mig was in late 2007, you are convinced of their guilt then this irrational adherence to a hopeless strategy in the face of DNA(!!!!) evidence must have been really baffling.

Which may very well be why he so aggressively pursued silencing both the Knox's and the Sollecitos and any journalists doubting his case. Mignini's conduct has always struck me as suggesting he was convinced they were both guilty. One thing to keep in mind with Mignini is he's not very familiar with modern forensic techniques from every account I've read, and what is suggested when he speaks on it. I suspect he's firmly convinced that DNA on the clasp places Raffaele at the scene without doubt, and those footprints were actually made in blood, and that blood mixed in the bathroom, even though none of it actually means anything.

Originally Posted by Anglo Lawyer

Conti-Vechiotti record somewhere that a request to return to the apartment was made on the 13th Dec and it probably takes a few days to organise and equip a team like the one which conducted the 18th Dec operation.

Hmm....interesting, however Mignini was keeping close tabs on their phones and conversations as best he could, (I heard a report of something like 30k messages recorded of A&R's family and friends!) so getting wind they were going to go on TV and expose the shoeprints as erroneous is hardly implausible.

Originally Posted by Anglo Lawyer

Pretty subtle if that's how things really work. One thing I am sure was not in their heads in December 2007 was that the 7th cavalry was on the far side of the hill about to make its entrance. To Anglicise the image, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. This is another answer to the problem of why they didn't make a better job of it.

Things ended badly for the Seventh Cavalry!!! That was George Armstrong Custer and the boys that sang Gary Owen in the teeming Sioux camp! Try the Polish Hussars crashing into the Sultan's van at Vienna for better effect if you need a non-Anglo image!

However that's a good point. I've often wondered just what of the bilge they produced for the press those first two weeks they actually believed. The 'clear cut' CCTV camera video had to be a lie, as you can see no one sane could pretend it was actually a definable image. However things like the Harry Potter book, which turned out to merely be not realizing she had two Harry Potter books, one at the cottage and one at Raffaele's, as well as the call to the Carabinieri might have suggested they'd have plenty of evidence.

On the latter it's actually understandable how they might have made the mistake, according to Matteini the Postal Police estimated their time of arrival as 12:35¹ and that in turn suggests why they may have made the mistake with the time differential polarity, assuming the 12 minute discrepancy must have been because the camera was twelve minutes fast instead of 12 minutes slow, thinking the Postal Police must have arrived at ~12:36 instead of ~1:00 PM like they did.




¹

Originally Posted by Matteini Report page 4

On the 2nd November 2007, at 12.35, personnel of the Polizia Postale of Perugia presented themselves in via della Pergola, number 7...

[Charlie Wilkes]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Ah, OK. But doesn't the door itself remain open throughout?

Look at the video starting at 47:00. Someone handles the door by touching the same general area where Raffaele's fingerprints had been found.

More generally, if you watch that entire video, you see them milling around, handling all kinds of stuff, before they pick up and handle the bra fastener. Moreover, by the time the video was shot, the crime scene had already been disrupted by a great deal of activity that was not documented.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by Charlie Wilkes

I think contamination is the most likely explanation for the mixed DNA on Filomena's floor - not benign according to the prosecutor, but not as incriminating as it would have seemed had this result come from Meredith's room.

Most of the samples were taken from an area of the house shared by Amanda and Meredith, so their DNA was getting spread around. Raffaele's DNA would have been present in that environment, but only in a few random places. Contamination would have been less likely, but, in an investigation handled as poorly as this one, entirely possible in any given sample.

Which is not to say that the bra fastener wasn't tampered with deliberately. We'll just never know one way or the other, unless someone talks.

Yes, but specifically: Meredith's DNA at Raffaele's place is (supposedly) on the knife blade only and Raffaele's DNA in the victim's room is on the hook of the clasp only. Ignoring all other contamination sources and loci, those two are pretty far out for random contamination to be responsible. At the very least, we are talking about extreme bad luck for the defendants.

If negligent procedures accounted for the contamination one would expect results to show up for RS in Metedith's room and Meredith in his apartment in benign as well as incriminating places. Not just one case each on the very items the cops would choose if given a free choice. And that's before looking at the back story for each of the two items.

It's a lot of smoke for there to be no fire. In a civil court, balance of probabilities only, the chances of making out a case of deliberate contamination would be more than negligible and coupled with a slam dunk claim for negligence could be undertaken with minimal risk. The pleading in each case would be:

the defendant (Stefanoni) negligently and/or deliberately [insert allegation].

Agreed there is a way to go for criminal proceedings ... but the lies don't hurt.

[Grinder]

Whenever I read the various scenarios of how the murder went down according to one or the other of the PG crime tourists I am amazed that they rely on Curatolo, Nara and the other witnesses found by the same cub reporter.

Arguments are made about the disco buses and how Cura couldn't be expected to know when Halloween took place and after all his knowing that the spacemen came the next morning proves he knows what he was talking about. The fact that he was a daily heroin user doesn't seem to phase them at all. They have to have the kids coming and going from the plaza at just the right times for Cura to see them and yet allow them to party, murder, clean and be running for Nara to hear them.

The PGP also need to negate much of what Lalli reported. They love to discuss how it is impossible to determine ToD by stomach contents but use the rest of his work to do the ToD by temperatures taken. They ignore the alcohol found in her system, as do many here, when building tehir scenarios.

I truly don't understand why the PGP don't just drop the cub reporter's witnesses and build a more sensible case based on other evidence such as Meredith's phone activity and yes, stomach contents. I just can't imagine what was going on from 9 until 11:30.

[Charlie Wilkes]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Yes, but specifically: Meredith's DNA at Raffaele's place is (supposedly) on the knife blade only and Raffaele's DNA in the victim's room is on the hook of the clasp only. Ignoring all other contamination sources and loci, those two are pretty far out for random contamination to be responsible. At the very least, we are talking about extreme bad luck for the defendants.

If negligent procedures accounted for the contamination one would expect results to show up for RS in Metedith's room and Meredith in his apartment in benign as well as incriminating places. Not just one case each on the very items the cops would choose if given a free choice. And that's before looking at the back story for each of the two items.

It's a lot of smoke for there to be no fire. In a civil court, balance of probabilities only, the chances of making out a case of deliberate contamination would be more than negligible and coupled with a slam dunk claim for negligence could be undertaken with minimal risk. The pleading in each case would be:

the defendant (Stefanoni) negligently and/or deliberately [insert allegation].

Agreed there is a way to go for criminal proceedings ... but the lies don't hurt.

The marginal result on the knife blade had to have come from contamination in the lab environment. That is why the quantification test was negative - there was no DNA in the sample. Whatever showed up in the e-gram came from the instruments used to handle the sample. That sample - 36B - is unique in the population of DNA results for this investigation, because it is the only one where Stefanoni scored a profile from markers of less than 100 rfu. She followed a markedly different test procedure to manufacture incriminating evidence, but she probably did not contaminate the sample deliberately, because had she done so, she could have generated a result that showed a strong profile.

The bra fastener is a different story. My own suspicion is that the cops discussed its absence after they had reviewed all the stuff collected in the initial sweep, so everyone knew it was on the list of things to look for in a return visit. With this in mind, someone grabbed it off the floor, rubbed it against something like Sollecito's toothbrush or an article of his clothing, and returned it to the crime scene. That strikes me as the most likely explanation, and such clandestine handling would also explain why the sample contained traces of DNA from multiple unsubs.

But, I have followed enough crime stories so I can't rule out coincidence either. DNA turns up where no one expects it to be.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by Kaosium

Regarding the knife, my guess is that was a bluff created with a run through a contaminated machine, a failed 'negative control' as it were, and was simply to force a confession out of them.

Interesting. Over on IIP yesterday TomZ53, in conversation with Chris Halkides, said this:

Originally Posted by TomZ53

About the weak, but complete MK profile from the single, irreproducible kitchen knife sample, the reported result most strongly supports the interpretation that DNA contamination had occurred; that this contamination happened during the protracted lab analysis process; and that apparent sample contamination was most likely due to 'MK PCR product' rather than MK genomic DNA. This interpretation accounts for everything, and in particular the low level of a complete MK profile. (Chris, think about it. Fresh but highly dilute 'MK PCR product' in a downstream sample used to set up a PCR should give exactly the result observed . Consider the difference in sensitivity of the PCR to MK PCR product as opposed to MK genomic DNA. It would only take the most minute sample from PCR contamination to produce the observed result.)

I am interested in this. Are the scientists suggesting that a negative control run was responsible for the profile claimed by Stefanoni to have come from the knife blade? That would mean deliberate fabrication.

Would there not be a documentary angle to all this? If you run a negative control, what documents come into existence in association with the process? There must be written records, right? Else, how would they keep track of what they are doing? Also, are the procedures recorded in just any old notebook that comes to hand or in something more formal, like a kit manufacturer's or specially printed log, perhaps with numbered pages?

What I am getting at is that if, say, Stefanoni ran a negative control which fortuitously threw up Meredith's profile and then had the bright idea of saying it was a profile taken from sample B (knife blade) there may have been a resulting need to re-write the paperwork with the possibility that she left behind some clues.

Forging documents is not easy. Aside from breaks in pagination, there might be pages missing or torn out of notebooks and other things besides (a tell-tale change of ink or handwriting). Without knowing considerably more about the record keeping aspect I wouldn't really know what to look for but I would be surprised if this were not a useful line of enquiry, especially given Stef's reluctance to cough things up.

One would need to construct in one's mind what a genuine and well-ordered set of records should look like, compare that with what her lab produced and then theorise about any differences.

Originally Posted by Kaosium

Another good part is when they record that she spoke up about them not using the fume hood. They leave it there without comment but if you look into I do believe you'll find she had it backwards: that kind of fume hood would create a vacuum and thus draw potential contaminants into the area which is supposed to be 'beyond sterile.' She 'corrected' them by telling them to do the opposite of what should have been done!

IIUC this is C-V recording that during one of the sessions attended by all parties, Stefanoni wanted a note made of the failure to use a fume hood, on which they make no comment but on which the comment could have been: 'don't be such an idiot, using the fume hood would make things worse'. Wow. The failure to comment on this is understatement of almost English proportions!

Originally Posted by Kaosium

Things ended badly for the Seventh Cavalry!!! That was George Armstrong Custer and the boys that sang Gary Owen in the teeming Sioux camp! Try the Polish Hussars crashing into the Sultan's van at Vienna for better effect if you need a non-Anglo image!

Hmmm. Custer you say. I wanted something American, rather than non-English. OK, she didn't hear the B52s rolling out of the hangar and thrumming their way towards the runway. Or the silo doors sliding open, or something. Anyway, you got the point: she will not have expected the degree of scrutiny she got and will accordingly not have covered her tracks to the required extent.

Originally Posted by Kaosium

However that's a good point. I've often wondered just what of the bilge they produced for the press those first two weeks they actually believed. The 'clear cut' CCTV camera video had to be a lie, as you can see no one sane could pretend it was actually a definable image. However things like the Harry Potter book, which turned out to merely be not realizing she had two Harry Potter books, one at the cottage and one at Raffaele's, as well as the call to the Carabinieri might have suggested they'd have plenty of evidence.

On the latter it's actually understandable how they might have made the mistake, according to Matteini the Postal Police estimated their time of arrival as 12:351 and that in turn suggests why they may have made the mistake with the time differential polarity, assuming the 12 minute discrepancy must have been because the camera was twelve minutes fast instead of 12 minutes slow, thinking the Postal Police must have arrived at ~12:36 instead of ~1:00 PM like they did.

The knife blade DNA sample was extracted and tested on 13 Nov 2007, only a week after the arrests. If it was a failed negative control dishonestly reclassified as a profile taken from sample B, then the framing started early, but that would not mean they did not believe they were guilty, just that they wanted to improve their hand somewhat.

I don't have a grasp of all the evidence they accumulated and/or announced to the world in the period preceding Guede's arrival on the scene but I would be interested to follow a discussion of this topic.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by Charlie Wilkes

The marginal result on the knife blade had to have come from contamination in the lab environment. That is why the quantification test was negative - there was no DNA in the sample. Whatever showed up in the e-gram came from the instruments used to handle the sample. That sample - 36B - is unique in the population of DNA results for this investigation, because it is the only one where Stefanoni scored a profile from markers of less than 100 rfu. She followed a markedly different test procedure to manufacture incriminating evidence, but she probably did not contaminate the sample deliberately, because had she done so, she could have generated a result that showed a strong profile.

The bra fastener is a different story. My own suspicion is that the cops discussed its absence after they had reviewed all the stuff collected in the initial sweep, so everyone knew it was on the list of things to look for in a return visit. With this in mind, someone grabbed it off the floor, rubbed it against something like Sollecito's toothbrush or an article of his clothing, and returned it to the crime scene. That strikes me as the most likely explanation, and such clandestine handling would also explain why the sample contained traces of DNA from multiple unsubs.

But, I have followed enough crime stories so I can't rule out coincidence either. DNA turns up where no one expects it to be.

I also see the blade and the clasp as resulting from two different stories. Elsewhere in this thread the possibility is being discussed that the blade was a failed negative control which happened to show up a complete profile for Meredith and was then dishonestly attributed to sample B, maybe as a tactic to exert pressure on defendants believed to be guilty. That, insofar as I understand it, coincides with my own clear view that there was nothing at all on that blade.

The clasp comes along much later when a few important things have changed: they need something on Raffaele, Guede has replaced Lumumba and no one has cracked.

As an aside, it's kind of funny that Raffaele gets mixed up in this at all given that, at 1.45 a.m. on 6 Nov 2007, the cops were sort of happy to leave him out of it, with Amanda meeting up with Lumumba on her own. I wonder what compelled them to drag him into it and then keep him there with no evidence. Whatever it was, it happened in the next 4 hours because by 5.45 he was beginning to be implicated.

Originally Posted by Amanda's 5.45 statement

I am not sure if Raffaele was there as well that night

and by the time of the press conference later the same morning it was 'case closed'. Maybe they thought they would teach the arrogant kid a lesson.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by Grinder

Whenever I read the various scenarios of how the murder went down according to one or the other of the PG crime tourists I am amazed that they rely on Curatolo, Nara and the other witnesses found by the same cub reporter.

Arguments are made about the disco buses and how Cura couldn't be expected to know when Halloween took place and after all his knowing that the spacemen came the next morning proves he knows what he was talking about. The fact that he was a daily heroin user doesn't seem to phase them at all. They have to have the kids coming and going from the plaza at just the right times for Cura to see them and yet allow them to party, murder, clean and be running for Nara to hear them.

The PGP also need to negate much of what Lalli reported. They love to discuss how it is impossible to determine ToD by stomach contents but use the rest of his work to do the ToD by temperatures taken. They ignore the alcohol found in her system, as do many here, when building tehir scenarios.

I truly don't understand why the PGP don't just drop the cub reporter's witnesses and build a more sensible case based on other evidence such as Meredith's phone activity and yes, stomach contents. I just can't imagine what was going on from 9 until 11:30.

Trouble is they have so little evidence they cannot afford to lose even Curatolo and the scream. They have lost the DNA so their fall back position is: the 'lies', the staged break in and the clean up.

One of the planks in the clean up and/or staging is Micheli's 'moving of the body' theory which has it that the body was moved 'an appreciable amount of time' (meaning?) after death as shown by an impression supposedly made by Meredith's right bra strap in blood on the floor.

I understand this to be the picture of that impression:

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...56960082_n.jpg

I think you can see pretty clearly that this impression is really nothing more than the effect of the tile. You can see the blood soaked bra strap in this picture in the lower foreground:

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...24265833_n.jpg

See if you can lie down with the arc made by your right breast up and over your right shoulder and down onto your right shoulder blade in contact with the ground without removing your head first.

Two more pictures which raise a problem no one has solved as far as I know, despite concerted effort at IIP. The first is just for scale:


http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...42140869_n.jpg

Notice the letter 'P' higher up the bed towards the wall. Behind and above it is a blood smear, which you can just make out. It has two parallel tracks either side of it and no one can make out what caused it. This is a close up:

[halides1]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Just so you understand the layman's perspective (well, this layman anyway) interpretation of the egrams is one of the hardest things to understand because so much judgment and experience seem to enter into it. One of the clasp loci has 7 peaks. Does this mean 7 (or more) individuals or are some of these false peaks?

anglolawyer,

You are on the right track, but you are probably overcounting. In the absence of artifacts, there should be no more than four peaks in an one locus if there are two contributors (but there are sometimes only two or three*). With respect to your question, one would also like to exclude peaks that one suspects are artifacts. The artifacts that matter are stutters. If one has the peak heights, one can use a cutoff, such as 15% (most stutters are considerably shorter than this). Any peak that is one repeat unit shorter** than a large peak and that is less than 15% of the tall peak in height is probably a stutter. I have sometimes adopted a more qualitative approach when trying to analyze e-grams that did not list peak heights, namely, I just eliminate all small peaks that are in the minus-one position. So, if one eliminates the stutters, and one still has more than four peaks in a locus, there must be more than two contributors. When the real peaks are small, it can be difficult to tell the real peaks from the stutters.

*If one person is homozygous for n repeats and the other is heterozygous, there will only be three peaks. If two people are both heterozygous, but they overlap, then there could be only two or three peaks. For example, suppose that individual A has 15 and 18 and the number of repeats and B has 12 and 18, then there will be three peaks in the e-gram, at 12, 15, and 18 repeats, plus stutters.

**If a peak is at 19 repeats, the most likely stutter peak will be at 18, for example, which is at the -1 position with respect to 19. Stutter at the +1 position is much less common. One of the problems with Stefanoni's evaluation of the bra clasp was that she invoked stutter at the +1 position (which would be 20 repeats in this example) in a way that made it seem as if there were fewer contributors to the clasp than I think there were.

[halides1]

Originally Posted by christianahannah

Fabricated meaning how? I'm not sure I understand what you mean the word to imply.

I think there were technical consultants for the defense present (Vinci and I think Potenza) on December 18 along with a television monitor in a van so the various parties could view what was going on inside of the cottage, particularly so, inside of Meredith's room.

If there were defense consultants inside the cottage, along with defense people viewing the searching of the cottage on December 18 (all this I am not 100% certain), hopefully nothing would have been done in an untoward manner during the searching and collecting of evidence while they were there, and if so, they would have objected vigorously to the search, collection, and evidence appearing out of thin air.

christianahannah,

If any evidence tampering happened, it happened prior to 18 December. Mary_H once speculated that they collected the clasp on or about 2 November, then returned it to the cottage sometime later and rediscovered it. I have been reviewing the forensics of the Lindy Chamberlain case recently, and I am willing to reconsider biased forensics, as opposed to fraudulent forensics, as the problem with the clasp.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by halides1

anglolawyer,

You are on the right track, but you are probably overcounting. In the absence of artifacts, there should be no more than four peaks in an one locus if there are two contributors (but there are sometimes only two or three*). With respect to your question, one would also like to exclude peaks that one suspects are artifacts. The artifacts that matter are stutters. If one has the peak heights, one can use a cutoff, such as 15% (most stutters are considerably shorter than this). Any peak that is one repeat unit shorter** than a large peak and that is less than 15% of the tall peak in height is probably a stutter. I have sometimes adopted a more qualitative approach when trying to analyze e-grams that did not list peak heights, namely, I just eliminate all small peaks that are in the minus-one position. So, if one eliminates the stutters, and one still has more than four peaks in a locus, there must be more than two contributors. When the real peaks are small, it can be difficult to tell the real peaks from the stutters.

*If one person is homozygous for n repeats and the other is heterozygous, there will only be three peaks. If two people are both heterozygous, but they overlap, then there could be only two or three peaks. For example, suppose that individual A has 15 and 18 and the number of repeats and B has 12 and 18, then there will be three peaks in the e-gram, at 12, 15, and 18 repeats, plus stutters.

**If a peak is at 19 repeats, the most likely stutter peak will be at 18, for example, which is at the -1 position with respect to 19. Stutter at the +1 position is much less common. One of the problems with Stefanoni's evaluation of the bra clasp was that she invoked stutter at the +1 position (which would be 20 repeats in this example) in a way that made it seem as if there were fewer contributors to the clasp than I think there were.

Thanks. I realise now I have been counting alleles as individuals. If someone is homozygous in a particular repeat, does that double the RFUs and give a higher peak for that locus?

[halides1]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Thanks. I realise now I have been counting alleles as individuals. If someone is homozygous in a particular repeat, does that double the RFUs and give a higher peak for that locus?

Yes, that is correct; the intensity should approximately double. With respect to evidence item 177, one could take the fact of Amanda's and Meredith's DNA being present as a given.* Then one could use the Amanda's and Meredith's known reference profiles to assign some of the peaks and stutters, and then see what is left over. If there were peaks left over, then at least one more person contributed DNA to the clasp.

*One has to be aware of not violating the restriction against using a suspect-centered approach to analyzing an electropherogram, but as I have described it here, I think one would be OK. If one obtained a reference profile of Filomena (for example) and placed its image over the e-gram of Rep. 177, that would not be the correct way to approach the analysis.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by halides1

Yes, that is correct; the intensity should approximately double. With respect to evidence item 177, one could take the fact of Amanda's and Meredith's DNA being present as a given.* Then one could use the Amanda's and Meredith's known reference profiles to assign some of the peaks and stutters, and then see what is left over. If there were peaks left over, then at least one more person contributed DNA to the clasp.

*One has to be aware of not violating the restriction against using a suspect-centered approach to analyzing an electropherogram, but as I have described it here, I think one would be OK. If one obtained a reference profile of Filomena (for example) and placed its image over the e-gram of Rep. 177, that would not be the correct way to approach the analysis.

I am confused again. It's the y-haplo on the clasp isn't it? And that's only got one allele (?) and I am sure there is a locus with 7 of them. That's why I thought 7 or more males. Carla Vechiotti's evidence was that she stopped trying to count when she found two besides Raffaele (in answer to Maresca as a reported by Frank). Sorry if I'm just being dumb but I need to understand this better.

[Charlie Wilkes]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Trouble is they have so little evidence they cannot afford to lose even Curatolo and the scream. They have lost the DNA so their fall back position is: the 'lies', the staged break in and the clean up.

One of the planks in the clean up and/or staging is Micheli's 'moving of the body' theory which has it that the body was moved 'an appreciable amount of time' (meaning?) after death as shown by an impression supposedly made by Meredith's right bra strap in blood on the floor.

I understand this to be the picture of that impression:

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...56960082_n.jpg

I think you can see pretty clearly that this impression is really nothing more than the effect of the tile.

Yes. The photo linked above is a portion of a photo that also shows a corresponding mark on Meredith's back. Micheli apparently glanced at this and thought it was a mark from her bra strap, but thoughtful examination shows it is not at all the right shape for that. It appears to be, as you say, an effect caused by surface tension as the blood settled along the seams in the floor tiles.

The bloodstain on the wall may have been caused by brushing a blood-soaked portion of the quilt or one of the bloody towels against the wall.

[halides1]

anglolawyer,

The prosecution never turned the negative controls over to the defense by the end of the trial of the first instance. I am unaware of any reason to believe that the knife profile was a failed negative control. In a typical 28 cycle PCR experiment, the theoretical amplification is well over 1 millionfold (only twenty cycles are needed to get to a millionfold amplification of DNA in theory). Therefore, if one accidently transfers only 1/1,000,000th of a post-PCR reaction product into a pre-PCR reaction, it is a significant contaminant.

[Grinder]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

Trouble is they have so little evidence they cannot afford to lose even Curatolo and the scream. They have lost the DNA so their fall back position is: the 'lies', the staged break in and the clean up.

One of the planks in the clean up and/or staging is Micheli's 'moving of the body' theory which has it that the body was moved 'an appreciable amount of time' (meaning?) after death as shown by an impression supposedly made by Meredith's right bra strap in blood on the floor.

Anglo, once again I probably wasn't clear. I don't see that Curatolo and Nara help their arguments. Curatolo's testimony as reported at the time made it sound like the kids were in the plaza from 9:27 p.m. until just before midnight. The prosecutors "saved" his testimony by getting him to say that they may have come and gone. The gyrations needed to explain how they were there at 9:27 but didn't kill Meredith until 11:30 are of historic proportions. The broken-down car and the tow truck prevent them from coming and going from 10:15 to 11 IIRC, the scream has them in the cottage at 11 to 11;30 and yet they were spotted in plaza often between 9:27 and midnight.

When Curatolo's testimony came out a year after the murder most of us on the NG or I side thought that Curatolo gave the kids an alibi, I still do. The ToD of 10:15 from the calls and other evidence make the tours to the plaza seem even more crazy.

Antonella Monacchia said she heard a couple arguing in Italian before the scream. Many of the PGP say not even Raffaele speaks proper Italian and certainly at the time Amanda didn't. I don't think we know Meredith's Italian ability but I don't see how the PGP put the argument and scream together.

Bottom line, I don't think these "witnesses" help put the scenario together and I don't see why the PGP don't just drop them.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by Charlie Wilkes

Yes. The photo linked above is a portion of a photo that also shows a corresponding mark on Meredith's back. Micheli apparently glanced at this and thought it was a mark from her bra strap, but thoughtful examination shows it is not at all the right shape for that. It appears to be, as you say, an effect caused by surface tension as the blood settled along the seams in the floor tiles.

The bloodstain on the wall may have been caused by brushing a blood-soaked portion of the quilt or one of the bloody towels against the wall.

Thanks. Do you know which part of her back? I think the right bra strap was probably soaked by blood from her own wounds as I don't think it is physically possible to place the relevant part of your body hard against the floor.

Re: the smear on the wall, do you suppose the two parallel tracks are related to it or of independent origin?

[Kaosium]

Originally Posted by anglolawyer

I am confused again. It's the y-haplo on the clasp isn't it? And that's only got one allele (?) and I am sure there is a locus with 7 of them. That's why I thought 7 or more males. Carla Vechiotti's evidence was that she stopped trying to count when she found two besides Raffaele (in answer to Maresca as a reported by Frank). Sorry if I'm just being dumb but I need to understand this better.

There is both an autosomic and a y-haplotype for the bra clasp. Meredith's profile dwarfs the others, thus they chose to present the Y-Haplotype as well as it helped 'unmask' the other contributors so they could be identified easier.

What I meant by the 'failed negative control' was basically what TomZ53 posted, perhaps I had the terminology wrong. They're supposed to check that they get a completely negative result from the machine, to ensure it isn't contaminated. I was going off this here:

Originally Posted by DNA Testing for non-scientists

Most forensic DNA laboratories perform negative controls, blank samples that will often detect contaminants in the laboratory. The blanks detect contaminants by showing partial or full DNA profiles representing the contaminants. Alternatively, the blank may show no profile, consistent with, but not proving that contamination didn't occur.

My guess was the machine was contaminated by previous samples of Meredith being run through, so they got that perfect, but extremely weak profile and that's why the records of the quantification step absolutely astonish Conti-Vecchiotti. (I especially like "...it is not possible to comprehend the criteria adopted..." and "Nor is it comprehensible..." )

I saw something similar posted by 'BTC' elsewhere and figured it might have been the answer. He said something like the machines had to be 'flushed' regularly to prevent those results if I recall correctly.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by Dan O.

That paragraph also mentions "the second inspection on December 18" in the immediately preceding sentence so it is inconclusive as to which date the "repositioned" refers.

I had noticed in examining the photos of the clasp positioned under the pillow, that the weave pattern of the pillow case imprinted in the blood on the floor appears to go right under the bra clasp as if it were never there.

Perhaps I just don't have a high enough resolution copy of those photos.

DanO

I have been meaning to return to this. This is the full extract with added emphasis:

Originally Posted by Massei report p.200

She stated that she was present when the corpse was lifted and moved, and under the back of the corpse, she had not seen that little piece of the bra. She recalled that night, around 2 AM on November 3, according to what emerged from the video of that inspection. The clasp was immediately brought to her attention and photographed. It wasn't however catalogued during the course of that first search, because, although important, being a missing piece of the bra, there was the fact that "however we had taken the entire bra" [p121]; furthermore, just like the small piece [of bra], other objects like the handbag and the sweatshirt were left behind and which, catalogued during the second inspection on December 18, yielded results. The small piece of bra in question was repositioned where it had been found and in other words, on the floor, on top of which the pillow was found, on which the lifeless body of Meredith had been placed.

During the second search, the December 18, 2007 one, this small piece of bra with hooks was found in another area of the room, near the desk, under a little rug, and around one metre or one and a half meters from where it had been seen during the or the manner in which it had been moved.

If you read the whole thing, it looks like they replaced it where they found it on 03 Nov 2007 (it was found about 2.00 a.m.) then went away and came back on 18 Dec 2007 where they found it somewhere else and went through a second procedure of picking it up and putting it down again.

Of course, this is Massei's account of Stefanoni's evidence, which is one step removed from the evidence itself and it is a translation from the original Italian, which reduces its reliability even further, but, for FWIW, the meaning it seems to bear is that there was some handling on 03 Nov 2007 as well as later.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by Grinder

Anglo, once again I probably wasn't clear. I don't see that Curatolo and Nara help their arguments. Curatolo's testimony as reported at the time made it sound like the kids were in the plaza from 9:27 p.m. until just before midnight. The prosecutors "saved" his testimony by getting him to say that they may have come and gone. The gyrations needed to explain how they were there at 9:27 but didn't kill Meredith until 11:30 are of historic proportions. The broken-down car and the tow truck prevent them from coming and going from 10:15 to 11 IIRC, the scream has them in the cottage at 11 to 11;30 and yet they were spotted in plaza often between 9:27 and midnight.

When Curatolo's testimony came out a year after the murder most of us on the NG or I side thought that Curatolo gave the kids an alibi, I still do. The ToD of 10:15 from the calls and other evidence make the tours to the plaza seem even more crazy.

Antonella Monacchia said she heard a couple arguing in Italian before the scream. Many of the PGP say not even Raffaele speaks proper Italian and certainly at the time Amanda didn't. I don't think we know Meredith's Italian ability but I don't see how the PGP put the argument and scream together.

Bottom line, I don't think these "witnesses" help put the scenario together and I don't see why the PGP don't just drop them.

Grinder

I think I did understand you but my counter point was that there is so little evidence that if you start chucking bits of it away what is there left? Maybe you could enumerate what remains after subtracting Nara and Toto.

I have played this out in my mind before. I even started a thread at IIP called 'I still think they did it' to try and make a case which stands up but my heart wasn't in it.

In addition to your reasons why these two witnesses don't help (btw. are they chucking away Kokomani and Quinatavalle also?) what about their inherent unreliability? I mean setting aside what they actually say? Toto is a drug addled tramp and Nara is a LOL who may well have heard something else entirely. Their evidence can only come into a case like this if there is already a stack of other stuff to which it can be added (like someone else seeing three people running at 11.30 or someone else seeing our two in the square - was Toto the only person in that square all that time)? But there isn't. It's all they've got.

[anglolawyer]

Originally Posted by Kaosium

There is both an autosomic and a y-haplotype for the bra clasp. Meredith's profile dwarfs the others, thus they chose to present the Y-Haplotype as well as it helped 'unmask' the other contributors so they could be identified easier.

What I meant by the 'failed negative control' was basically what TomZ53 posted, perhaps I had the terminology wrong. They're supposed to check that they get a completely negative result from the machine, to ensure it isn't contaminated. I was going off this here:



My guess was the machine was contaminated by previous samples of Meredith being run through, so they got that perfect, but extremely weak profile and that's why the records of the quantification step absolutely astonish Conti-Vecchiotti. (I especially like "...it is not possible to comprehend the criteria adopted..." and "Nor is it comprehensible..." )

I saw something similar posted by 'BTC' elsewhere and figured it might have been the answer. He said something like the machines had to be 'flushed' regularly to prevent those results if I recall correctly.

You are hopping back and forth between the knife and the clasp at bewildering speed. Too nippy for mere mortals. Let's slow this down please.

The knife is Meredith's autosomal profile at below 50 RFUs, possibly the result of a failed negative control, possibly the result of some other kind of contamination and possibly even the result of a bona fide sampling of the blade although I suspect not many posting here buy the last one. I do not.

If it is a failed negative control (a dry run through the gram machine to check it's clean) which threw up Meredith's profile then any decision to attribute that result to the blade would have to have bend deliberate unless she made some catastrophic mistake with her paperwork (for which she should be shot anyway) which I would find hard to believe.

What I want to drive you to (say) is that if Meredith's profile for the blade was in fact the result of a failed negative run, the implication is that evidence against the two was deliberately fabricated. It would be like lifting a fingerprint from an entirely innocent item and slapping it on something incriminating. You cannot do that by accident.

The clasp has autosomal DNA and a bunch of y-haplotypes. You helpfully showed us the results for the y-haplos. It has three columns:

RTIGF = Stefanoni's report
NS Lettura = our reading ('our' being C-V)
Alleli non Letti = alleles not read.

I assume the first column happens to coincide with Raffaele's Y-haplo repeats in the stated loci and that C-V are saying uh-oh we found some more which she failed to mention.

Can you please say what are the alleles not read? Or maybe just bounce me off to an earlier post where I can just bore myself instead of everyone else.

And you seem to have picked up that I was confusing the autosomal results with the y-haplos. Thanks for straightening me out. I see that in loci D2S1338 and D19S433 there are 7 peaks in the 'all peaks' column and 6 in the above 50, which would point to 3-4 people at least, disregarding homozygotes and assuming all peaks are real.