Amanda Knox & Raffaele Sollecito
Okay, here we go again!
The Italian supreme Court of Cassation has just released the written explanation for its March decision to overturn the appeals court decision that itself overturned the convictions of American student Amanda Knox and her Italian student boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, for the murder of Amanda’s English flatmate Meredith Kercher.
Once you examine all of the facts as we have, this is not a difficult case to solve. As far as we are concerned, the biggest remaining mystery is why the Italian judicial system just doesn’t let it go. Is it possible that the story of this pretty American girl whom the Italian media dubbed “Angel Face” is just too sordidly good not to hold onto? Or is it more likely that, having allowed prosecutor and Public Minister Giuliano Mignini to make an absolute mockery of truth and justice in claiming Amanda and Raffaele killed Meredith in a drug-fueled, Satan-inspired sexual frenzy, and having kept Amanda and Raffaele in prison for four years, the high court just wants to save face for what is plainly a horrid miscarriage of justice?
We have thoroughly examined the facts, evidence and behavioral indicators of this case in our recent book Law & Disorder, and it is not our intention here to recapitulate everything. Suffice it to say that there is no evidence – repeat, NO EVIDENCE – to indicate that Amanda and Raffaele were even present at the crime scene, much less participants in the murder. All evidence – every single bit of it – proves that Rudy Guede, who was also convicted of the crime – was solely responsible. But given the reality that many uninformed or gullible people will now take the Court of Cassation decree at face value, certain points must be addressed.
In its 74-page document, the high court claims the appeals decision “openly collides with objective facts of the case.”
For the court even to speak of “objective facts” when the prosecution has so twisted and obscured them is an exercise in rhetorical excess in and of itself. Come on, your honors, there are no facts tying these two to the murder! The entire verdict is based on could-haves, might-haves and it’s-possible-thats, but no evidence. The satanic ritual scenario came straight out of Mignini’s fevered imagination, and it wasn’t even original. As our colleagues Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi have impressively documented, Mignini first came up with this motive in the “Monster of Florence” case. It didn’t work there, either.
The high court said the appeals court had not taken into account evidence that Guede had not acted alone.
Again, what evidence? Rudy’s DNA is all over the crime scene in Meredith’s bedroom and Amanda and Raffaele’s is absent. Mignini claimed the other two had used bleach to erase all of theirs, which is physically impossible, yet the jury bought it. By the way, DNA is invisible to the naked eye, so it must have been particularly skillful of Amanda and Raffaele, a girl and a boy with zero criminal experience or sophistication, to perform this impossible feat without erasing any of the incriminating evidence against Rudy.
Moreover, for any well-trained and experienced homicide investigator or an FBI profiler, determining whether a crime scene represents one or multiple offenders is one of the most basic skills. Few scenes are ambiguous on this point, and this was not one of those.
Then the high court claims the appeals court didn’t give sufficient weight to Amanda’s so-called “confession” – that is, the statement she made after the police had browbeat and hammered at the confused, terrified, grief-stricken and utterly exhausted Amanda for so many hours in a tag-team interrogation that she literally could not separate dream state from reality and finally agreed to whatever they led her to.
As we have often stated – and proved through numerous examples – it is not difficult to obtain a false confession. Getting a true confession is a more formidable challenge. There is absolutely no doubt that in Amanda’s state at the time, if the police interrogators had suggested to her that she and Raffaele were in league with alien invaders who wanted to know what human sex and murder were all about, she would have gone along with that scenario.
Our friend, former FBI Special Agent Steve Moore, interrogated suspected terrorists after 9/11. He commented that, “If any FBI agents who reported to me had conducted the interview [with Amanda], I would have had them prosecuted.”
The written opinion goes on to fault the appeals court for not acknowledging Amanda’s false implication of the bar owner for whom she worked part-time, Patrick Lumumba, in her forced dream-like scenario in which she was told to “imagine” that she was actually in the house at the time of the murder.
This is perhaps the most illogical comment of all from the Court of Cassation. If she really was at the scene, why would she purposely protect someone she knew was guilty and implicate a friend whom she knew was innocent? She wouldn’t have. So why did she name Patrick rather than Rudy? Because the police had already mentioned Patrick to her and knew the connection between the two of them and they hadn’t even heard Rudy’s name at the time.
Rudy had committed other breaking-and-entering crimes and often used a knife. Amanda and Raffaele had no history of any sort of violence or sexual perversion.
Rudy had a clear-cut motive. Amanda and Raffaele did not.
We could go on and on like this, but there is no percentage in even dignifying an opinion that is so devoid of respect for facts and evidence as to be shameful. What part of this do they not understand?
The facts and evidence in this case are abundantly clear to any legitimate homicide investigator: Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent of the murder of Meredith Kercher. Rudy Guede is guilty. End of story.
And the longer the Italian authorities refuse to accept that, the more they will embarrass themselves and shame the standards of truth they claim to honor.
[…] 23, 2007, in Perugia, Mandu Maria Diaz, Guede’s next door neighbor, was away from home when she was told that her house had been […]
And it reminds me of a definition of insanity postulated by the late French Jewish nuero-psychiatrist, Henri Baruk, who concluded that it is a state between reality and the dream world. He also proposed learned schizophrenia as well as other illnesses. Perhaps these techniques can induce temporary insanity.
Thanks for the good work. I was skeptical of the whole affair as I remember that my sister told numerous Italian cop and court jokes upon her return of living in Europe for 3 years in the 70’s. Seems like they haven’t advanced much since then.
There are, in my view, a number of issues around Rudy Guede that makes it impossible for the Italian Justice System to “just let it go.” First of these is the fact that Guede was “convicted” as part of a collaborative crime. For that conviction to stand his collaborators need to be identified or the conviction should be put aside as in error. I doubt Italy can retry Guede as a sole perpetrator at this late date. Even in Italy he must have some rights.
That said, there are many things about the background of Rudy Guede that have never been analyzed by journalists and if known by authorities have never been made public. For example, who were his known associates? He is believed to have committed several similar burglaries prior to the one that took Meredith Kercher’s life. These were strange crimes as they were not good targets for valuables nor did he dispense with items stolen for cash or other goods. They were in fact still with him when he was apprehended during the burglary of a nursery school. What was this person actually doing?
We have extensive information about Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito before and after the murder of Meredith Kercher. We have little to no information about Rudy Guede during the same period although he and he alone left fingerprints, footprints and DNA in the murder room. The most information we have about this person comes from Nina Burleigh’s book, The Fatal Gift of Beauty.
Although here Burleigh did dispel several rumors about Guede and managed to interview a few people who actually knew him on a personal level, she mentions but does not identify his girlfriend in Milan. Milan is 400 miles from Perugia and Rudy made the trip twice during the summer prior to the Kercher murder. Did he make that trip only to see his aunt and uncle? If so, why did he need to break into that nursery school on two occasions to sleep there? Why did he cook large quantities of food in the nursery kitchen?
There are other people involved in the history of Rudy Guede whom, if identified and interviewed may very well shed real light on what happened to Meredith Kercher.
In her own book, Waiting To Be Heard, Amanda Knox relates that there is unidentified DNA in the crime scene. Whose is it? Why are we so sure Rudy Guede acted alone? Obviously he did not act in concert with two people he didn’t know. But why is it so hard to learn who the people were he DID know?
Interesting and provocative observations, Merle. It would indeed be illuminating to know more about Rudy Guede and his background than has come out in the investigation and trial and could possibly shed needed light on his motivations and M.O. Thanks for bringing this up.
There are some more facts we know about Guede. His adoptive Italian father disowned him a few months before the murder for laziness and chronic lying. He was spiraling toward destitution, unable to pay the rent.
He was the sole perpetrator in the nursery school break-in and the break-in at the bartender’s home. In both these occasions he had a knife.
What meaning does “unidentified DNA in the crime scene” have after the police totally contaminated the scene? They walked from room to room, outside, back inside, never changing their booties or their gloves.
They came back several times from the outside world and trashed the place. They stood in wet blood in the murder room, and then walked out of the room. Some people act like it’s a big mystery how blood was found on Filomena’s floor.
Excellent comments, Tom.
Paolo Caporali cut Guede loose on his 18th birthday. Guede moved to Milan and lived with his aunt and uncle, became a waiter in a Milan restaurant. Publicly he was well-liked, competent in 3 languages, funny, a talented basketball player, and by many accounts a fabulous dancer. Victor Oleinikov, an American student who knew Guede well in Perugia said he was very popular with women. So much for the “girl botherer” comment from a Perugian waiter who did not know him.
Privately Rudy Guede was diagnosed with fugue state. His foster sister remembers he was afraid of the dark. He told a friend he had to hide his keys from himself before he went to sleep or he’d wake up miles from home. He was rejected from crashing at friends houses because he’d wake everyone barking like a dog. Fugue state is nearly always the result of childhood physical and sexual abuse.
Tom, what leads you to understand Rudy Guede was the “sole perpetrator” at the nursery school break-in? Do you know that he broke into that nursery school twice? The first time was in late September after he’d attacked Tremontano in the bartender’s apartment in Perugia.
Maria Del Prato, the owner of the nursery school, came in on a Monday morning to allow plumbers to complete work. She found the kitchen in vast disarray. Someone had prepared a large quantity of food, pasta and frozen spinach, and left the debris all over the room, in the sink, all over the tables. Also the pallets where the children take their naps were disarrayed and obviously had been slept on. She was also missing 2000 euro, the tuition she’d accepted from parents the previous Friday. If we assume Rudy Guede perpetrated this break-in he was clearly not alone at that time.
But why would we assume this? On October 23, Maria Mandu Diaz, who lived next door to Rudy, was attending Vendemmia, the grape harvest festival, when police arrived to inform her that her home in Perugia had been badly damaged by fire and her cat had been killed in the blaze. Thieves entered the home through a window and started the fire on the 3rd floor by throwing a scarf over a lamp. They cooked a meal and tossed food all around the kitchen. They left the stove on and the refrigerator open. A fireman commented to her: “Loro hanno gozzovigliato,” they feasted here. The similarity between this crime and the first nursery school break-in are notable. When Rudy was apprehended in the second break-in at Del Prato’s nursery school, he had with him, along with electronics stolen from the law offices of Paolo Brocchi on via Del Roscetti in Perugia, an heirloom watch very like the one reported stolen from Maria Mandu Diaz. During the Mandu Diaz arson Guede was not alone.
There is much much more about Rudy Guede that is I suspect purposely being covered up. I have a theory about why this is happening, but the logic of Guede’s criminal activities are more like acts of vandalism than acts for profit. With the exception of 2000 Euro from Del Prato and 300 Euro from Meredith Kercher he received no money from his criminal activity. The valuables he stole he never sold. It is of course likely he was also involved in many other Perugia and Milan burglaries which have not been solved to include him.
The ISC apparently wants to keep this conversation about two people who were clearly not involved in any of these activities. Why don’t they want to make the conversation about the person who certainly was involved? Why did Rudy Guede have to murder someone before he was arrested? How many times do you have to get caught burglarizing in Italy before you get arrested?
Merle-
Thanks for all this info. It’s been a few years since I read Burleigh. Regarding the nursery school break-in, Guede was the only person there when the owner arrived. One person can trash a place and Guede trashed several places. If multiple beds were slept in, and if the kitchen mess really does indicate more than one person, than yes there were multiple perps.
Do you have links to reputable info about Guede’s past, because I’m interested and the police are not going to provide it. And it’s not easy being an investigative journalist on this case. The Perugian police harassed Frank Sfarzo outside and inside the courtroom leading up to their near fatal assault on him in his apartment.
http://www.cpj.org/search/mignini
By the October 2007 timeframe Guede was on the edge of destitution, had no legitimate source of income, and was involved in a rash of break-ins. It is indeed strange what you say about vandalism break-ins.
I think the context of the waiter’s “girl botherer” comment was Guede forcing himself into conversations and grabbing women to dance with him whether they wanted to or not. How this behavior ranked relative to the average male pick-up behavior in Italian establishments, I have no idea.
The credible evidence at the crime scene all points to Guede:
Guede’s bloody shoe prints in the murder bedroom and hallway.
Guede’s bloody palm prints on the wall and the pillow under Meredith.
His DNA all over the bedroom, on Meredith, and inside her.
His DNA and her blood on her purse.
A cut on his knife hand like OJ had. (It is common for assailants to cut their fingers during a vicious knife attack as the hand slides forward from the handle over the blade. A former swat team member explains this: http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/FBI2.html)
Guede fled the country.
Merle-
Thanks for all this info. It’s been a few years since I read Burleigh. Regarding the nursery school break-in, Guede was the only person there when the owner arrived. One person can trash a place and Guede trashed several places. If multiple beds were slept in, and if the kitchen mess really does indicate more than one person, than yes there were multiple perps.
Do you have links to reputable info about Guede’s past, because I’m interested and the police are not going to provide it. And it’s not easy being an investigative journalist on this case. The Perugian police harassed Frank Sfarzo outside and inside the courtroom leading up to their near fatal assault on him in his apartment.
http://www.cpj.org/search/mignini
By the October 2007 timeframe Guede was on the edge of destitution, had no legitimate source of income, and was involved in a rash of break-ins. It is indeed strange what you say about vandalism break-ins.
I think the context of the waiter’s “girl botherer” comment was Guede forcing himself into conversations and grabbing women to dance with him whether they wanted to or not. How this behavior ranked relative to the average male pick-up behavior in Italian establishments, I have no idea.
The credible evidence all points to Guede:
Guede’s bloody shoe prints in the murder bedroom and hallway.
Guede’s bloody palm prints on the wall and the pillow under Meredith.
His DNA all over the bedroom, on Meredith, and inside her.
His DNA and her blood on her purse.
A cut on his knife hand like OJ had. (It is common for assailants to cut their fingers during a vicious knife attack as the hand slides forward from the handle over the blade. A former swat team member explains this: http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/FBI2.html)
He fled the country.
Tom, all the information I relate here I’ve acquired from Nina Burleigh. She is the only journalist who has made any serious inquiry into Guede’s background (or Giuliano Mignini’s for that matter).
I have asked Candace Dempsey why she did not include more about Guede’s crimes in Murder in Italy. She says this information is too hypothetical to be reliable. Hypothetical or not, it is certainly a springboard for serious investigation. I think it’s very strange that we have reams of info about the backgrounds and behaviors of Knox and Sollecito but very little verifiable info about the man whom evidence clearly puts in the murder room.
I put the information Nina Burleigh reported about Guede in rough chronological order in this article: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981070613
It is as reliable but also only as specific as Burleigh is in The Fatal Gift of Beauty. I wish a journalist as dogged as Sfarzo would track Rudy’s accomplices and less savory friends and get specific information about what he was doing.
He was accomplishing things for the first time in his life in Milan in 2006, living with his aunt and uncle both of whom apparently love him. Suddenly everything went wrong. He lost his waiter job. This must have been when he first turned to crime. Who was his bad influence? It’s an old saying: “Cherchez la femme.” During the summer of 2007 he traveled the 400 miles between Perugia and Milan at least twice. Did he go there to see his aunt and uncle? If so, why did he need to break into the nursery school to sleep?
There is much more here than meets the eye. Why is no journalist running down this story in Italy? Is it only that Amanda Knox sells more magazines?
Merle-
Thanks for that link. It is very helpful.
Freedom of the Press does not exist in Italy the way that we know it. Government officials enjoy the privilege of harsh defamation laws. They can initiate slander charges against critical journalists for the most frivolous of reasons. And these are criminal charges, not just civil.
http://www.cpj.org/search/mignini
The police can also send a message to would be critics by physically assaulting Sfarzo with impunity.
It certainly is safer and more profitable to just write titillating tabloid stories than to do investigative journalism.
Mr. Douglas illustrates this problem in “Law and Disorder”. Il Messaggero commissioned Krista Errickson to interview Douglas. But then they were too scared to actually publish it.
It’s strange to read about courageous Italian journalists operating in foreign war zones, who cannot even advocate for reform back home.
I’m intrigued by the reference to “our colleagues Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi.” Are you working together on this? Your piece has numerous errors. Repeating “no evidence” does not change the fact that there is indeed evidence. Would you like to have a serious debate or would you like to recite slogans? It’s up to you.
We are not working together with Preston and Spezi. They are colleagues because they are both fine and serious writers interested in the same subjects we are. We have never shied away from a serious debate on any subject about which we have written or spoken as long as the other side is serious and reputable. And we would suggest that anyone interested in such a debate should first read LAW & DISORDER to know and understand our position.
This is absolutely about saving face and a group of dirty old men obsessed with their disgusting theory.
In addition to the excellent analysis of this case by Mr. Douglas and Mr. Olshaker in their book, here are articles written by former FBI Special Agent Steve Moore which give you the POV of another seasoned homicide investigator:
http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/FBI4.html
http://www.gmancasefile.com/blog.html
This case really is Amanda Through the Looking Glass to a world where logic and reason are turned upside down.