Watch 48 Hours: Amanda Knox, the Untold Story

Watch it here.

Also read "Why There Will Always Be Three Amanda Knoxes."

Planning a vacation in Italy?  Be careful.  The  above article states:

Italy is a sunny place, but free speech there is rather chilled. The nation was ranked 79th in press freedom in 2009. Journalists who criticize Silvio Berlusconi have been fired. Prosecutors have the right to throw journalists in jail on fairly flimsy grounds. Most Italian journalists assume phones are tapped. Courageous, smart journalists are on the front lines of stories about war, the Mafia and social issues, but those who do investigative work generally don't take on the government, a function left to the judiciary, which polices itself.

Amanda Knox Appeals Trial Ends Today: Verdict Next Week

New suspect in Meredith Kercher murder case? Or
is it another victim of Amanda Knox?  DNA on kitchen knife
indicates rye bread was slain in a Satanic ritual.  Either that
or in a sex game gone awry.   Will Mignini prosecute?

Amanda Knox's appeals trial in Perugia, Italy ends  today.  Yesterday, the defense put on an excellent summary of the case and why the prosecution's case is utterly flawed and unsupported by evidence.  Today the two accused, Knox and her friend Raffaele Sollecito, will make personal appeals to the jury.  A verdict is expected early next week, perhaps on Monday.

I have read about the case rather extensively, and I have no doubt that the two accused are completely innocent of the crime.  They were not present when the crime went down, had no motive for killing the pretty young victim, Meredith Kercher, and there are no witnesses and no evidence to support their conviction.  They should never have been indicted, never should have been tried, and most certainly never convicted.  However, the prosecution lied repeatedly throughout the first trial, destroyed evidence and obstructed justice.  Luminol indicated that footprints in the bathroom might contain blood, but specific tests for blood showed there was no blood.  Nevertheless, the prosecution (and many media outlets) proclaimed that the footprints were "bloody footprints."

However, the two major pieces of "evidence" on which the prosecution built its case were these:
(1) DNA found on a kitchen knife that they alleged was the murder weapon, and  
(2) DNA found on a bra clasp that was ripped from the bra of the victim during the crime.

First, let's review the knife and its DNA evidence.
A kitchen knife was chosen at random from a kitchen drawer in Raffaele's apartment, 15 miles away from the crime scene, and proclaimed to be the murder weapon.  It wasn't.

In the first place, it is absurd to think that Knox and Sollecito carried a kitchen knife to the crime scene, 15 miles away, used it to murder the victim, then washed it off and carried it back to be placed in a kitchen drawer.  Ridiculous.  As Mark Waterbury points out in The Monster of Perugia, there were plenty of kitchen knives in the cottage where the murder occurred, why would one need to be transported to and from the crime?

More importantly, the knife didn't fit the wounds on Kercher's body, it didn't match the bloody print of the actual murder knife left on her sheets, but the prosecution was bent on framing Knox and Sollecito (why is another story -- see today's ABC report for details) and presented it as key evidence.  A forensics lab, under the control of the prosecution, tested the knife for DNA and found (1) Amanda's DNA on the handle, providing shocking and irrefutable evidence that she once used the kitchen knife to prepare dinner, and (2) a very tiny amount of what might be DNA on the blade of the knife.  The prosecution alleged that it was Kercher's DNA.

That small amount of DNA was below the threshold of accurate testing by the lab's equipment, and might have been from contamination from other samples tested in the same lab.  The amount of DNA the tester, one  Dr. Stefanoni, retrieved from the blade was extremely small, 1/3 of a picogram.  A picogram is one one-trillionth of a gram.  Stefanoni used 1/3 of the sample to test for blood, and no blood was found.  Let me repeat: The DNA on the blade was not from blood. She then used all of the remaining sample to test for DNA, even though the sample was far too small to provide an accurate reading, overriding the testing equipment's TOO LOW indicator in order to do so.  Since all of this DNA was used up, there was no possibility for a second test to confirm the results.  However, it is highly doubtful that this substance was the victim's DNA; other experts who reviewed Stefanoni's results say it was apparently starch from rye bread.  (Perhaps Mignini will now issue a warrant for the arrest of a loaf of bread!)

Clearly, the kitchen knife and related DNA evidence prove absolutely nothing, except that the prosecution was reckless, amateurish and highly biased in their effort to manufacture the evidence needed to fit their preconceived theory of the crime.  The appeals court was right to throw it out.

Second, let's review the evidence of the bra clasp.
When Rudy Guede was raping the victim, he ripped off her clothes.  Her bra was found on the floor and tested for DNA evidence, but the bra clasp was left on the floor for 47 days among the dust and debris before it was picked up and tested.

The prosecution stated that Raffaele Sollecito's DNA was found on the bra clasp, indicating that he must have ripped off the bra and was part of the crime.  However, the DNA of at least three other people was also found on the bra clasp, but these samples were not profiled and the identities of the owners not explored.  When one is attempting to prove a preconceived theory, one does not bother with evidence that might lead elsewhere.

However, it is not at all clear that the prosecution's DNA test proves anything.  About 30% of household dust is dead skin cells.  Dead skin cells contain DNA.  Contamination of the bra clasp, either from 47 days of dust or from the forensic team's dirty gloves (as recorded on video), is almost a certainty.

Further, none of Raffaele's DNA was found on the bra itself.  This is rather incredible if Raffaele ripped off the bra.  Perhaps he ripped it off only by touching the tiny bra clasp in back, either using tweezers or his first finger and thumb.  Who knows what these satanic cultists will do during an orgy?

Some DNA strands were found to match some of the markers for Sollecito, but again, the DNA collected was not good enough to prove this beyond any shadow of a doubt.  One of the outside experts called in from Rome reviewed the DNA testing of the bra clasp, and found DNA markers that matched her own!  Perhaps she was the true murderer -- perhaps you were (can you prove you weren't in Perugia on November 1, 2007?).  It does prove, however, that the bra clasp evidence is worthless.  The appeals court was right to throw it out.

If Knox and Sollecito are exonerated, as they certainly should be, let us be clear:  they will not have been "let off on a technicality."  They will have been exonerated for a crime for which they had no guilt whatsoever.

Kercher's Stomach Contents Exonerate Amanda Knox -- Will Jurors Agree?

Knox's lawyer refuted in court today the Massei report from the first trial of Amanda Knox.  That report wrongly stated that food eaten might not exit the duodenum for five hours, and that Kercher's death could have happened as late at 11:30 at night.  Medical professionals have since strongly rejected this conclusion as being impossible.  They state that Kercher's stomach contents, from her last meal at 6 pm, indicate the time of her death was between 9 and 9:30 pm. (See explanation of Doug Bremner, M.D., here).  The only person known to be at the murder scene at that time was Rudy Guede, as learned from his cell phone records.

Guede had falsely testified that he came out of Kercher's bathroom to find Sollecito standing over the body at around 9:15 or 9:20 pm.  However, it has been reliably established that Sollecito was somewhere else at the time of Kercher's death.  This evidence should exonerate Sollecito, and by implication, Knox, since it proves Guede is a liar and the person solely responsible for the crime.  [Update:  it also exonerates Knox, since it has been established that she was at Sollecito's apartment at 9:30 pm.]

At this point, I have grave doubts about the ability or the willingness of the Perugian jurors to fairly assess the evidence.  However, this gives a bit more hope that Knox and Sollecito will be acquitted in their appeals trial.

Amanda Knox Was Framed: Evidence For Her Guilt Non-Existent

After Amanda Knox was convicted of murder in 2007, I started reading about the case, the crime, the evidence and the accusations.  I came to the conclusion that Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffael Sollecito were indeed innocent of the crime.

Now I have found a website that brings together the evidence and findings of FBI agents, forensic pathologists and other experts, and they confirm my conclusion as correct.  See Injustice in Perugia, a site detailing the wrongful conviction of Amanda Knox and Raffael Sollecito.

The corrupt Italian prosecutor in the case released many lies and myths to the Italian press before the trial, in an attempt no doubt to pollute the jury pool.  Many of these lies are still being put forth as fact by those believing in Knox's guilt.  Examples include the store receipts showing that Knox bought bleach on the morning after the murder -- she did no such thing and no such receipts exist.  Nevertheless, Ann Coulter used this false claim as an argument on the O'Reilly Factor last year, when she argued in favor of the guilty verdict.

Another example is the alleged finding of Meredith Kercher's DNA on a kitchen knife found in Sollecito's apartment.  Note -- no blood was found on the knife at all -- just a very minute amount of DNA.  The DNA sample was so small that it could only be analyzed by the Italian technician overriding the testing apparatus, which had continued to read "too small."  This "evidence" should never have been presented in court.

There is a page at that site that lists current and breaking news stories of the case.  Of particular interest is this article by forensic expert Ron Hendry, who reconstructed the events of the crime from photographs, videos and other evidence.  His conclusion was that Rudy Guede murdered Meredith Kercher and that he acted alone.

Read this fascinating account here.