Amanda Knox again: very likely guilty, though most Americans will never know it

Last night I saw a made for TV movie about the Meredith Kercher murder case. It was interesting seeing the story brought to life by actors, and particularly seeing the juxtaposition of contemporary sexually liberated, racially integrated, and aimless and amoral college students with the beautiful medieval city of Perugia. While most of the acting was good, the actress playing Amanda Knox was a disaster; the actress was a generic young woman with a victimized expression on her face. She had none of the unusual, disturbing, cat-like charisma of the real Amanda Knox. An even greater flaw was that the movie ended up being just another installment in the pro-Amanda propaganda line that the U.S. media, to its utter disgrace, has pushed all along.

When I last wrote about the Amanda Knox / Rafaele Sollecito case in December 2009 (see this and this), I said that while Amanda and Rafaele were probably guilty, with a 60 to 70 percent likelihood of guilt, I didn’t see enough evidence to convict. That was based largely on my difficulty with the prosecutors’ complicated scenario of how the murder occurred, in which Amanda, Rafaele, and the African Rudy Guede cooperated in a sexual torture of Meredith that turned into murder. I’ve always had trouble seeing that happen. However, as a friend has pointed out, there may be a more direct path to a belief in Amanda and Rafaele’s guilt, namely certain facts that by themselves are simply incompatible with their innocence. For example, their lie about having spent the entire night at Rafaele’s house. Why would they have told that lie, other than to cover up their involvement in the murder? Or their showing up at the murder house with cleaning equipment on the morning after the murder. Why would they have done that, other than to clean up the evidence of the murder? Or Amanda’s telephone call to her mother at 4:47 a.m. Seattle time, which Amanda later denied having any memory of making. Why would Amanda wake up her mother in the middle of the night, unless she already knew she was in serious trouble?

While I obviously can’t know how I would vote on the defendants’ guilt short of serving on the jury and hearing all the evidence, I can think of arguments that the prosecution could make that might persuade me beyond a reasonable doubt that Amanda and Rafaele are guilty, along with Rudy Guede.

Another point: I said in December 2009 that I saw nothing in Amanda’s history that would suggest she was capable of this murder. That’s a weak argument. As I’ve learned from watching many episodes of the excellent cable TV programs Forensic Files and (before it changed to a one-hour, inferior format) Snapped, many murders are committed by individuals who, prior to the murder, gave no sign that they were capable of such an act.

- end of initial entry -

Stogie writes:

I have read a lot about this case and have come to the conclusion that Amanda Knox and her boyfriend were not guilty. Not even close.

They were framed by a very corrupt and ruthless prosecutor. They did not, by the way, show up anywhere with cleaning supplies. That is just another bald-faced lie told by the prosecutor, who made up “facts” on the spur of the moment and presented them as “evidence.”

Skeptical? Read all about it at this website, which carries analyses and opinions of former FBI agents and other crime investigators:

LA replies:

The fact that you could say that Amanda and Rafaele are “not guilty, not even close” (not even close?) indicates that you are still inside the pro-Amanda line, which is all that most Americans are exposed to, and have never been outside it. The pro-Amanda line simply suppresses all evidence pointing to Amanda’s and Rafaele’s guilt. I was inside it myself until I began reading other sources.

Spend some time perusing the site True Justice for Meredith which provides all kinds of facts in the case you will not get from American media.

As I said in December 2009, I do not know that Knox and Sollecito are guilty; but I do know that the pro-Amanda forces in the U.S. have engaged in a massive campaign of lies and concealment in their behalf, and that the average American reader and TV viewer has been profoundly misled by it.

Here are all VFR entries on the case, written both when I was inside the pro-Amanda bubble, and after I had escaped it.

February 23

Stogie writes:

I am pro-Amanda based on forensic analyses and expert opinions. You mentioned in your blog that Amanda and Raffael were caught standing on the porch with a mop and bucket in hand. This is completely false. As written at the site I referenced:

1) Lie—Amanda Knox was seen waiting at the store the morning after Meredith was murdered, waiting to buy bleach. It was widely reported that the authorities had bleach receipts proving that Amanda purchased bleach. On November 19, 2007, Richard Owen reported for the UK Times that police had found receipts showing purchases of bleach on the morning after the murder. The information was specific: one alleged purchase was made at 8:30, and a second was made at 9:15. No receipts were ever found. Then, in a November 25, 2007, report, Owen quoted an apparently official source as saying that the entire cottage, except for Meredith’s room and the bathroom she shared with Amanda, had been “thoroughly cleaned with bleach.”

It was reported that Amanda and Raffaele were caught by surprise that morning standing on the porch of the cottage with a mop bucket and bleach when the Postal Police arrived.

Truth—Amanda never purchased bleach. No receipts were ever presented at trial. Amanda and Raffaele weren’t caught by surprise. In fact, Raffaele had already called the police to report a possible break in. The mop bucket at the cottage was investigated and no evidence was ever presented in regard to any mop bucket. This story was told around the world. This lie is still being told. On December 10, 2009, Anne Coulter repeated this lie on the O’Reilly Factor.

There have also been reports that Raffaele purchased bleach and that receipts were found in his apartment showing proof of this purchase. Once again, this is simply not true. Raffaele’s apartment was thoroughly searched. Receipts were found in his apartment but none of the receipts indicated a purchase of bleach. The police took video of the receipts that were found.

Click here to view the images of the receipts found in Raffaele’s apartment. The prosecution presented no evidence at trial that anyone cleaned the cottage with bleach, Bloody footprints from Rudy Guede’s shoes are seen going down the hall and right out the front door. How could Amanda and Raffaele clean the floor with bleach, removing all of the evidence that pointed at them while leaving all of the evidence that pointed to Guede completely untouched? This theory is simply nonsense.

LA replies:

I didn’t say “mop and bucket.” I said “cleaning equipment.”

Also, I agree that there was much sloppiness and irresponsiblity by the Italian authorities and media. However, the misbehavior / incompetence of the Italian police and media doesn’t mean that Amanda and Rafaele are innocent.

The fact that A & R’s evidence was cleaned up but not Guede’s has been adequately addressed.

Stogie continues:

By the way, I looked through the site you referenced [True Justice for Meredith], and its arguments are extremely weak. Most if not all of the “evidence” listed there has been thoroughly refuted at injusticeinperugia.org. (For example, the bra strap, which had the DNA on it not only of Raffael, but four other people, and which lay on the apartment floor for 47 days before it was discovered and thus hopelessly contaminated.)

LA replies:

The controversy over the bra strap is old hat, like the DNA on the kitchen knife and the business about making it look like a break-in had occurred. There are more decisive pieces of evidence than that. Barbie Nadeau does not even rely on the kitchen knife.

LA writes:

I wanted to add that the actress who played Amanda’s mother in the movie did a fantastic job of bringing to life a certain type of contemporary liberal American woman—all pathetic befuddled emotion, no thinking. I don’t remember her name offhand, but she’s an actress I’ve seen many times before.

Also, there is a scene in the movie that shows the beginning of the process by which Americans got such a slanted, pro-Amanda view of the case. Amanda’s parents are speaking to some Italian lawyer, and he advises them that they must launch a campaign to give Amanda’s side of things. This was the beginning of the process, described by Barbie Nadeau in her book, whereby Amanda’s parents would feed to American media only those arguments that were helpful to Amanda, and the media sucked it in. The American media, instead of seeking a factual and balanced view of the case, passively took in all their information and arguments from Amanda’s family. Moreover, Amanda’s family would only speak to media figures who were sympathetic; they closed out the “enemies”—people who believed that Amanda might be guilty or who at least were not on the pro-Amanda side.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 22, 2011 10:07 AM | Send