I Said What???

Public Minister Giuliano Mignini

The Motivation Document released this week in the re-conviction of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of Meredith Kercher is just one more example of the inexplicable disregard for facts, evidence and logic that has plagued this case from the beginning. But what makes the case such an important cautionary tale and object lesson is the disregard for truth, and this also goes back to the very beginning.

Herewith, one example.

Judge Alessandro Nencini’s document stated the motive for the murder to be an argument over Amanda stealing money from Meredith, though Amanda herself rightly pointed out on CNN last evening that Rudy Guede’s DNA, in addition to being found on, in, and around Meredith’s body, was also found inside her pocketbook, from which cash and credit cards were missing. Further, according to Nencini, this was accompanied by an argument between the young women over Amanda tolerating Guede’s unacceptably poor hygiene in not flushing the toilet.

But in affirming this bizarre and faceless scenario, Nencini and his fellow judges/jurors rejected the prosecution argument on which Amanda and Raffaele had originally been convicted: a combination of a sex orgy gone bad when Meredith refused to participate and a satanic ritual murder timed to coincide with Halloween.

So, just to keep track, the two defendants were convicted, then acquitted in appeal, then told to stand for another trial by the Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome. They were then retried and re-convicted, but under a completely different prosecution theory.

We have a lot of bad prosecution here in the United States, as John Douglas and I have pointed out frequently, but how many times have you heard of an American prosecutor completely changing his story during a murder trial and getting a conviction. Personally, I’ve heard of this happening exactly never.

But here’s the kicker in our examination of truth: The original prosecutor, Public Minister Giuliano Mignini, recently declared to the media that he never supposed Meredith Kercher’s murder to be motivated by satanic ritual.

So let us quote him from the English translation of the trial transcript:

“It should be emphasized that, in any case, for those pathologically addicted to the commission of sex and violence, it is not far-fetched to connect the project to the tradition of Halloween, because if it is true that the night between October 31 and November 1 was passed (and Meredith had spent with her ​​friends and fellows), it is equally true that, at 9 pm circa of the first of November and for the next three hours, it was still the day of All Saints’ Day and what you do not was able to achieve on the eve night of Holiday of the Saints, could be realized in the night to pass from the last one to the ‘Holiday of the Deads.’

“Moreover, the three [Guede, Knox and Sollecito], and especially Sollecito, were all addicted to the suggestions of erotic – murdering ‘culture,’ which has previously been discussed and that night it was still the day of the Holiday of Saints, ‘inheritor’ of the Catholic Samhain Celtic New Year, with all the implications that have their central point in the Holiday eve, that is, the night between October 31 and November 1.”

The very least we should expect of a prosecution is to get its story straight.

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