Prosecutor Alessandro Crini
When the story keeps changing, it’s a good bet it isn’t true, whether that story is an explanation for how the cookie jar happened to fall off the kitchen counter or why the United States went into Iraq. And it’s a even better bet that the teller of the story is growing increasingly desperate.
That’s what we’re witnessing in Florence, Italy, as the retrial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito winds to its creaky close.
As Public Minister and lead prosecutor Giuliano Mignini prepared for trial in the 2007 killing of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, he claimed the death resulted from a satanic sex murder ritual led by Meredith’s American flat mate Amanda Knox and involving her new Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and the African owner of the bar where Amanda worked part time, Diya “Patrick” Lumumba.
By the time Lumumba was able to prove his solid alibi, the investigators were able to slot in another African, Rudy Guede. At least they got one part of it right – Guede was the actual killer.
But clearly, they didn’t understand the nature of the crime or the evidence at the scene, because even with the killer in hand, they continued charging Amanda and Raffaele. When Mignini and his cohorts couldn’t make his original theory stick, he kept the defendants but shifted to a drug-fueled sex orgy with Amanda still in charge, with Meredith the horribly brutalized victim when she wouldn’t play along.
The court and jury bought into this, even when the story kept shifting still. It went from a planned orgy to a spontaneous sexual freak-out. But by that time they’d already decided that Amanda brought the large kitchen knife murder weapon from Raffaele’s flat to her and Meredith’s flat. Oh well, then she must have been in the habit of carrying this unwieldy blade with her for protection, even though it would have sliced to shreds the inside of her handbag.
Then it was shown that the knife blade was too large to correspond to two of the three wounds on Meredith’s neck. Yeah? Well, there must have been two knives.
Now, in a second trial, this time in Florence – after the first trial found Amanda and Raffaele guilty, an appeals court found them innocent, and the Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome ordered them to stand trial yet again – Prosecutor Alessandro Crini has changed the story yet again as well. In his mind, they’re still guilty, of course, but it turns out the grisly murder was all about arguments between the flat mates over cleanliness and hygiene.
As you will recall if you’ve been following this case, Guede left an unflushed toilet full of feces when (a) according to him, he heard an intruder and had to rush quickly to his erstwhile sex partner Meredith’s aid, or (b) according to crime scene evidence and logic, Meredith came home while the intruder was on the john relieving himself and he couldn’t flush for fear of alerting her.
So now this is the prime evidence and motive for the murder.
Guede was friendly with the four male Italian flat mates downstairs (true), and by Crini’s reckoning, had left the toilet unflushed in a similar manner the previous week. “It is an absolutely disgusting and incongruous habit that he evidently had.”
No argument there.
But apparently, the prosecutorial logic goes, it really grossed out the prim, proper Meredith, yet was accepted and tolerated by the free-spirited Amanda. Tensions grew between the two young women (again, no evidence), and finally reached crisis level.
And Meredith got mad enough at her that Amanda decided to stab her flat mate repeatedly, slit her throat and have her two male “dominions” sexually assault her?
You’d be forgiven for wondering if the prosecution really went this route, but it was reported by the Associated Press.
Of all the cases John Douglas has investigated, and he and I have studied and analyzed, this has never come up as a motive in a murder. Why? Because it’s ridiculous.
Though no more ridiculous than all of the prosecution theories of Amanda and Raffaele’s involvement that preceded it, I have to add.
When the story keeps changing, it’s unlikely to get any better, or more truthful. And the prosecution has to know its case is in the toilet – where it belongs.
Not only a motive, but a case thats been in toilet since day one. They’ve gone from jealousy to a sex game gone wrong, to no motive at all & now evidence in the toilet that motivated 2 innocents who had no reason to conspire a murder along side a repeated burglar who should have been detained prior to this nightmare? Absurd. A disgrace to Italian Justice & judicial systems around the world.
I so agree with all the stated comments…and how this can continue with the continued who/what/where/when/why /how..changes..it is a circus..non moralistic/UNJUST..
For any theory to be meaningful, it must not only be provable but it must also be disprovable. For most conspiracy theorists, every fact fits into the theory. For the Amanda Knox is guilty theorists, every fact proves her guilt. There is no fact that disproves her guilt. She can never prove her innocence. Those theories should therefore be discarded.
Also the bloody imprint of the murder knife was left on the bed sheet. It is several inches smaller than Raffaele’s kitchen knife. Guede brought knives with him on his break-ins . And he threatened a man who caught him before.
For those who have already read “Law and Disorder”, another good book is “Injustice In Perugia” by Bruce Fischer which gives a no-nonsense presentation of the evidence and absence thereof.
If the police could have held out on making arrests for two more days, the ID of the bloody palm prints would have nailed the burglar Guede before reputations were on the line, and the mountain of misinformation, perjury, and tabloid profit would have been avoided. But that’s water under the bridge.
Forensic engineer Ron Hendry has an educational article on a law enforcement technique used to catch perps given a crime scene like this. It involves getting a list of all visitors over the past few months from all the residents, then cross-referencing this list with a list of known local burglars.
http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/RonHendryGuede24hours.html
Well said, Tom.
These prosecutors crossed into Crazytown territory some time ago and decided to build duplexes there. Like others have noted, it would all be darkly comedic at this point if it weren’t for the fact that two innocent people are still being prosecuted, a grieving family is still being used, and an actual killer is still having years of punishment being shaved off his sentence.
With any luck, the high court will end this painful circus once and for all in January, and this case can be consigned to criminology textbooks where it will be used a cautionary tale warning of the danger of stubborn, buffoonish pride for investigators.
The online pro-guilt communities that have arisen in the years since are truly the scariest aspect of this case, in my opinion. Guede is evil, but it’s the kind of evil that, unfortunately, is not uncommon in our world.
I follow true crime cases pretty closely. O.J., Jon Benet, Casey Anthony all awoke strong passions from the public. But I have NEVER seen anything like the cults of hate that the Knox case unleashed, have you?
This one is definitely high up there, Red, though I think the guilters, including a lot of those who should have known better, were pretty vociferous in the Ramsey case, too. Your comments are articulate and right on the money.
Mark, I spent nearly four years religiously following and opining on the JonBenet case and I *never* saw the type of behavior I’ve seen from the primary guilter sites for this case. At worst, Lou Smit was called an old man and John/Patsy criticized for putting JonBenet in the pagents, but those things were somewhat legit and tame by today’s standards. The sheer number of Ad Hominem attacks made against literally anyone who offered an opinion that there was no evidence of their guilt in this case is staggering. I don’t recall discussion boards ever banning someone for no other reason than having an opinion one way or another, yet all three of the primary guilter sites do exactly that.
Oh, and BTW, excellent article!