You’re absolutely correct. Not only that, but the Luminol footprints specifically tested NEGATIVE for the presence of blood. Every single one of them.
rmattbill
Karma: 52
“little effort was taken to remove evidence against Guede himself, even very obvious things like flushing the toilet.”
The assumption here is that Knox and Sollecito carefully removed their DNA, but did not remove Guede’s. Isn’t the more rational explanation for all of the evidence against Guede, and the lack of evidence against K&S, that Guede did it and K&S weren’t even there, as they have always claimed, and as Guede claimed no less than 5 times?
Further, there’s a lot of supposition about a “clean-up” floating around on the web, but no evidence of one. There’s lot of talk about bleach, bleach receipts, bleach on the knife, etc., but no evidence was introduced to support any of these claims.
Another claim is no prints were found for Knox, therefore she must’ve wiped them down. This presumes, incorrectly as it turns out, that no unusable prints were found. In fact, lots of smeared, smudge, or partial prints were found. The prosecution’s own expert witness on fingerprints, Giuseppe Privateri, testified he saw no sign of the place being wiped down for prints. There were lots of prints, just not a lot of usable ones, which is totally normal since the way we use our hands often causes the oils left behind to be smeared.
Also, to believe this theory of a clean-up, one has to believe that with Superman-like enhanced vision, Knox and Sollecito could see their fingerprints and DNA, and Guede’s, and could selectively remove their without disturbing his. This seems far-fetched in the extreme.
In the bathroom, some of Kercher’s blood was found mixed with Knox’s DNA, probably from splashing onto a hair follicles or dead skin cell from Knox. Why didn’t this happen in Kercher’s room, where the orgy took place? No intermingling of sweat, saliva, or other bodily fluids- in an orgy?!?! It boggles the mind.
Last, a lamp from Knox’s room, her only source of light, was found on the floor in Kercher’s room, possibly put there by Guede as he tried to look for his possessions, or look for obvious signs. If Knox so carefully scrubbed Kercher’s room she was able to eras every invisible spec of DNA, why would she leave her bedroom lamp behind?
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the response.
Regarding the bleach, no evidence was ever presented that anything had been bleached. This story took on a life of it’s own after the phony receipts story began circulating. I believe the Judge blocked at least one officer from testifying that he smelled bleach, and was only allowed to say that Sollecito’s apartment smelled “clean,” because the bleach smell was not listed in the initial report, and was added later, after the false reports about the receipts.
Despite the deference True Justice shows for every bit of evidence that favors Knox’s guilt, Kokamani’s testimony was ludicrous. He claimed that when he saw Knox, Sollecito and Guede together, that Sollecito (a meek computer nerd by all acounts), punched him in the face, and that Knox whipped out a 16 inch (!!!) knife, and said “Come here you! I’ll show you!” and that he escaped by hurling olives and a cell phone at her. His testimony contradicted his original statement on many key points, and he had been arrested on drug charges before his testimony.
Regarding the footprints, my understanding is that two bloody shoe prints were found. One in Kercher’s room that matched Rudy Guede, and another on the bath mat in the bathroom, that was a partial. From everything I’ve read, the partial print in the bathroom is a mess. It’s certainly hard to tell anything from the photos. At various points, the prosecution said it was Knox’s, then Guede’s, then Sollecito’s. The defenses expert witness made a strong case that it was Guede’s, but I don’t think anyone can conclusively prove anything one way or the other because it’s only a partial print.
The other footprints were revealed by Luminol, but what True Justice leaves out is that every single one (except for the two I mentioned above), tested negative for the presence of blood. If the footprints weren’t bloody, they don’t really say anything about the crime, especially since Knox and Sollecito admit to being in the house that morning, before the body was discovered.
There are two good papers on the footprints at friendsofamandaknox dot org. Of course they’re biased in Amanda’s favor, but not any more so than True Justice is in the other direction.
I’m not surprised that some of Kercher’s blood was mixed with Knox’s DNA in the bathroom, since Knox’s DNA could’ve come from anything. If a drop of blood splashed onto a dead skin cell of Knox’s, the result would’ve been DNA from both women in the drop of blood. And that doesn’t take into account the sloppy (by U.S. standards) forensics work done by the Italian police who could’ve easily, and innocently, intermingled DNA which is, often, invisible to the naked eye.
This is apparently what happened with the bra clasp which was left sitting on the floor for 47 days, was moved several times by unknown persons, and contains the DNA of at least three other people (and those people are not Kercher, Knox, Guede, or the other roommates or their boyfriends). The DNA either belongs to police who were not following procedure, or was picked up in the lab due to improper handling.
In the crime scene photos, it doesn’t appear there is any glass on top of the clothes, nor did the police present photos of such a thing at trial. One of the biggest misconceptions is that the glass was on top of Kercher’s clothes in her room. If this is true, the intruder could hardly have ripped Kercher’s clothes off before breaking in through the window, but in fact the clothes were in Filomena’s room. She testified she didn’t leave any clothes out, hence the claim the break in was staged. But Filomena also could be wrong, she certainly wouldn’t be the first witness to misremember something. Also, Filomena was allowed into her room no less than three times before the police finally sealed it, so it’s hard to say exactly how the clothes and glass were intermingled before they were disturbed. It’s possible the break-in was staged, but given Guede’s past burglaries, and Occam’s Razor, it seems likely that Guede broke into the house. If the break-in was staged, the prosecution did not manage to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, at least not to my mind.
Last, I posted a separate comment with the link to the Daily Mail story about Guede’s other break-ins.
Everyone should be aware that there are numerous errors on truejustice, and you should double check anything on there for confirmation before treating it as reliable.
And let’s not forget that after he fled to Germany, Guede made a phone call using his Skype account and said Knox was not at the house that night (he didn’t say anything about Sollecito, has he had never even met him and didn’t know what he looked like). Even after police pressured Guede to put Knox at the house, he did not. Until weeks later, when he finally changed his story and said Knox was there and had argued with Kercher about money.
That may be true, but many cases of wrongful conviction involve multiple innocent defendants. The Norfolk Four is a perfect example. At one point the police suspected SEVEN men of the attack, even though the coroner said there was only evidence of an attack by one person. In the end, it turned out one person, a known rapist, had committed the crime, but not before four of the innocent served over a decade in prison.
For those who criticize Knox pointing the finger at Lumumba, again, look at the Norfolk Four case where the first suspect, innocent, wrongfully accused a friend, who then wrongfully accused several friends, who then wrongfully accused several of their friends! It might be impossible to understand the mindset that leads to something as wrong as falsely accusing someone else, but it’s happened to a lot of people, and normally they are treated with far less scorn than has been poured on Knox by her critics.
And let’s not forget, that many stranger-on-stranger rapes are burglaries and crimes of opportunity.
Sorry, my post contained an error. It was three burglaries in five weeks, not one week.
This is from an article at the Daily Mail entitled “Amanda Knox: The Troubling Doubts Over Foxy Knoxy’s Role in Meredith Kercher’s Murder.”
Here’s the link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1234298/Amanda-Knox-The-troubling-doubts-Foxy-Knoxys-role-Meredith-Kerchers-murder.html
And the pertinent text from the article:
On September 27, 2007 - five weeks before the killing—Perugia bar tender Cristian Tramantano heard a noise downstairs in his home and found Guede wandering around with a large knife. Tramantano recognised Guede from his work in a nightclub.
There was a confrontation between the two, which ended when Guede ran away. On four occasions, Tramantano went to Perugia’s central police station to report the break-in, identify Guede as the culprit and to detail how the intruder was armed and threatened him.
On each occasion, he says he was ignored and the police refused to log his complaint.
The following weekend, there was a break-in at an English-speaking nursery school in Milan in which 2,000 euros and a digital camera were stolen. The school owner, Maria Antoinette Salvadori del Prato, reported it to her local police station.
Three weeks later, on Saturday, October 27 - one week before the murder—Mrs Prato arrived at the school early in the morning with a locksmith to replace the front door, only to be confronted by Guede standing in the main entrance.
Police were called and Guede questioned. A stolen laptop, digital camera and ten-inch kitchen knife were found in his backpack.
But instead of being arrested and charged, Guede was merely escorted to Milan central railway station and placed on a train back to Perugia.
In the interim, on the weekend of October 13, there had been a break-in at the office of lawyers Paolo Brocchi and Luigi Palazzoli, in which a firstfloor window was smashed—similar to the break-in at Meredith’s house. A computer and other items were stolen.
They were later found in Guede’s possession, but he was not arrested or charged.
Hi Nick, While I appreciate that you don’t seem to be one of the irrational Knox haters, your comments about the evidence contain a couple of errors, and the one that don’t leave out some important facts which cast doubt on almost every single claim.
-Yes, Knox’s DNA was founded mingled with Kercher’s, but almost all of it was in the bathroom they shared. It would’ve been almost impossible NOT to find a few instances of their DNA mixed in such a small place, and a place where humans shed copious amounts of hair and skin cells, and even blood (shaving cuts, etc.).
-Not one shred of Knox’s DNA was found in Kercher’s room. The idea that she somehow managed to remove every microscopic shred of her DNA, while leaving Rudy Guede’s behind, is completely implausible. This alone casts enormous doubt on the prosecution’s theory. DNA in the bathroom simply proves Knox and Kercher lived together. A total lack of DNA in Kercher’s room is compelling evidence she was not at the scene of the crime.
-No traces of bleach were found at the crime scene. Numerous rumors about bleach are clogging message boards all over the internet, including false stories about receipts which showed Knox buying bleach twice the morning after the murder, but those stories did not pan out and were not presented at trial. One witness emerged, seven months AFTER the murder, to say he saw Knox buy bleach in his store, but his co-worker said he was lying. This testimony must be treated skeptically, since no traces of bleach were found at the crime scene. The crime scene was extensively examined using Luminol, and in addition to revealing blood, Luminol illuminates trace amounts of bleach.
-The Albanian witness who says he says Knox and Sollecito with Guede is the only person to allege that the three knew each other, and his testimony at the trial was contradictory and underwhelming, to say the least. Throughout his interrogation and trial, Guede denied knowing Knox or Sollecito, and denied they were at the house. He knew what Amanda looked like, as he had twice visited the downstairs neighbors to play basketball, but didn’t even know what Sollecito looked like.
-Knox and Sollecito had taken the mop to Sollecito’s house to mop up water that had come from a broken pipe under the sink. Was any blood or DNA found on the mop?
-Whether or not the bloody footprint on the bath mat matches Sollecito or Guede is highly debatable. Another bloody footprint, found in Kercher’s room, was a definitive match for Guede. Although people have posted claims about bloody footprints revealed using Luminol, those prints were left by sweat and oil, and tested negative for any trace of blood.
Briefly, on a few other points, the prosecution’s fingerprint expert said it was not unusual that he didn’t find usable prints for Knox in her own bedroom. There were lots of smeared prints (fingerprints, made by a tiny amount of oil on our skin, are easily disturbed), just no USABLE prints. Lots of smeared and partial prints is evidence the room was NOT wiped down, and he testified he saw no evidence of a wipe down.
Last, the so-called “fake” break-in is highly contentious issue and neither conclusion can be viewed as beyond doubt. The prosecution tried to say it’s impossible to climb the wall (ignoring photos of a 40-year old Italian detective in dress slacks and dress shoes easily scaling the bars on the window below), but Judge Micheli dismissed them, noting that anyone in reasonable shape could’ve easily climbed into the window. Rudy Guede, who had committed at least three burglaries in the previous week, was 20 years old, and a former semi-pro athlete.
But again, I appreciate your rational approach to the evidence, and respect your opinion. It’s nice to see someone on the internet talking about the evidence, and not just Knox’s immature behavior.
Cheers, Matt
Two more tidbits re: Kokomani (from annebremner.com):
To give you an example of how absurd it got, Kokomani said that when Amanda was yelling at him, he noticed a wide gap between her front teeth. So the judge asked Amanda to smile, and she did. There is no gap between her front teeth.
Nor could Kokomani have had a beer with Amanda and her Italian uncle in July of last year, as he claimed in court, because Amanda was not in Italy at that time and she does not have an Italian uncle.