Post by geebee2 on Dec 25, 2011 15:10:13 GMT -5
From your blog article at : fortaleza84.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/is-amanda-knox-guilty/#comment-53
Here’s another example: Shortly after the postal police arrived at the apartment on November 2, Knox advised them that Kercher normally kept her bedroom door locked even if she left the room for just a few minutes. This fact is confirmed by the testimony of Knox’s roommate and roommate’s friends who also arrived around that time and as far as I know, Knox never denied it at trial. However, the roommate also testified that Kercher pretty much never locked her bedroom door. So it seems that Knox lied to the authorities right out of the blocks. Again, this makes sense if you consider that Knox was setting up an explanation for her failure to immediately contact the authorities earlier that day.
The question here really is what Amanda actually said.
My pet theory is that the conversation probably went something like this
Filomena says: Meredith never locks her door.
Amanda says: No, she's always locking her door.
but this was somehow mis-translated, so what she said in Italian was
"No, she always locks her door"
This is just speculation on my part though. Massei says p31 [18]
This last circumstance, downplayed by Amanda, who said that even when she went to the bathroom for a shower Meredith always locked the door to her room (see declarations of Marco Zaroli, page 180, hearing of February 6, 2009 and declarations of Luca Altieri, page 218, hearing of February 6, 2009), had alarmed Ms. Romanelli more. She said she was aware of only once, when she had returned to England and had been away for a few days, that Meredith had locked the door of her room. (This circumstance was confirmed by Laura Mezzetti, page 6, hearing of February 14, 2009).
Massei reports this as a matter of fact, but it seems to me quite unlikely that Amanda made such a strong statement.
It also seems likely that Amanda, who was living in closer to proximity to Meredith ( both physically and in terms of their close relationship ) had a more exact knowledge of Meredith's habits.
Here is Amanda's testimony from the trial:
GHIRGA: How did you interpret the fact that Meredith's door was
locked right then? Did it seem to you something normal or
abnormal? Did it happen sometimes or very rarely?
AK: Well, it happened to me sometimes to find that her door was
locked, for example if I called Meredith and she had just gotten
out of the shower, and wanted to change her clothes, and I would
get near the door, I would notice it was locked. But, then she
was inside. She also locked it when she went to England. But the
fact that it was locked then, I didn't know if she had gone to
England, and if it was locked and she wasn't inside, for me that
was strange and I didn't...
GHIRGA: Okay, so that gives some clarification about Meredith's
locked door.
AK: Yes.
Now of course you could argue that this was a planned back-track on what she actually said, but I find it quite plausible that in her original statement ( at a time of some panic ) she intended or would have liked to say this, but what she said in Italian was not precisely what she meant, due to her limited means of expressing herself in Italian. As someone who knows almost no Italian, I cannot comment on whether the translation would present difficulties for a novice.
If you analyse a large amount of information ( especially spoken conversation, even more when the speaker is not fluent in the language ) you will inevitably find small inconsistencies.
As far as I can tell, Hellmann does not address this issue at all, presumably because Massei only mentions it in passing, and hardly as a piece of core evidence.
That's as far as I can go on this. It would be valuable to have the actual testimony of Marco and Luca, but unfortunately I don't have access to that.
I don't say that this could not be taken as some slightly suspicious circumstantial evidence (in the absence of all other evidence and considerations, let's say 51% chance of guilty, 49% chance of not guilty), but then you could equally say there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that Amanda and Raffaele are not guilty. It's very odd for murderers to go back to the scene, practically discover the body, not avail themselves of legal advice, keep going to the police station to answer questions, etc. It's not nearly enough to overcome the extreme implausibility ( highlighted by Hellmann ) of two young people with no criminal history conspiring with a third person (Rudy) to commit a brutal murder, and the other unlikely events I highlight in my analysis of the Massei report ( massei-report-analysis.wikispaces.com/ ).
Here’s another example: Shortly after the postal police arrived at the apartment on November 2, Knox advised them that Kercher normally kept her bedroom door locked even if she left the room for just a few minutes. This fact is confirmed by the testimony of Knox’s roommate and roommate’s friends who also arrived around that time and as far as I know, Knox never denied it at trial. However, the roommate also testified that Kercher pretty much never locked her bedroom door. So it seems that Knox lied to the authorities right out of the blocks. Again, this makes sense if you consider that Knox was setting up an explanation for her failure to immediately contact the authorities earlier that day.
The question here really is what Amanda actually said.
My pet theory is that the conversation probably went something like this
Filomena says: Meredith never locks her door.
Amanda says: No, she's always locking her door.
but this was somehow mis-translated, so what she said in Italian was
"No, she always locks her door"
This is just speculation on my part though. Massei says p31 [18]
This last circumstance, downplayed by Amanda, who said that even when she went to the bathroom for a shower Meredith always locked the door to her room (see declarations of Marco Zaroli, page 180, hearing of February 6, 2009 and declarations of Luca Altieri, page 218, hearing of February 6, 2009), had alarmed Ms. Romanelli more. She said she was aware of only once, when she had returned to England and had been away for a few days, that Meredith had locked the door of her room. (This circumstance was confirmed by Laura Mezzetti, page 6, hearing of February 14, 2009).
Massei reports this as a matter of fact, but it seems to me quite unlikely that Amanda made such a strong statement.
It also seems likely that Amanda, who was living in closer to proximity to Meredith ( both physically and in terms of their close relationship ) had a more exact knowledge of Meredith's habits.
Here is Amanda's testimony from the trial:
GHIRGA: How did you interpret the fact that Meredith's door was
locked right then? Did it seem to you something normal or
abnormal? Did it happen sometimes or very rarely?
AK: Well, it happened to me sometimes to find that her door was
locked, for example if I called Meredith and she had just gotten
out of the shower, and wanted to change her clothes, and I would
get near the door, I would notice it was locked. But, then she
was inside. She also locked it when she went to England. But the
fact that it was locked then, I didn't know if she had gone to
England, and if it was locked and she wasn't inside, for me that
was strange and I didn't...
GHIRGA: Okay, so that gives some clarification about Meredith's
locked door.
AK: Yes.
Now of course you could argue that this was a planned back-track on what she actually said, but I find it quite plausible that in her original statement ( at a time of some panic ) she intended or would have liked to say this, but what she said in Italian was not precisely what she meant, due to her limited means of expressing herself in Italian. As someone who knows almost no Italian, I cannot comment on whether the translation would present difficulties for a novice.
If you analyse a large amount of information ( especially spoken conversation, even more when the speaker is not fluent in the language ) you will inevitably find small inconsistencies.
As far as I can tell, Hellmann does not address this issue at all, presumably because Massei only mentions it in passing, and hardly as a piece of core evidence.
That's as far as I can go on this. It would be valuable to have the actual testimony of Marco and Luca, but unfortunately I don't have access to that.
I don't say that this could not be taken as some slightly suspicious circumstantial evidence (in the absence of all other evidence and considerations, let's say 51% chance of guilty, 49% chance of not guilty), but then you could equally say there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that Amanda and Raffaele are not guilty. It's very odd for murderers to go back to the scene, practically discover the body, not avail themselves of legal advice, keep going to the police station to answer questions, etc. It's not nearly enough to overcome the extreme implausibility ( highlighted by Hellmann ) of two young people with no criminal history conspiring with a third person (Rudy) to commit a brutal murder, and the other unlikely events I highlight in my analysis of the Massei report ( massei-report-analysis.wikispaces.com/ ).
