perugia shock

(Updated)

Close Encounters of the Strange Type

Court consultant Stefano Conti and Carla Vecchiotti were well prepared for the main objection, the one about Raffaele’s DNA alleles on the bra clasp that are still there (despite, as we know, the two scientists had recovered more alleles from at least two other male persons).

I’ll save you the scientific details, but in a few words: Vecchiotti brought as an example a single marker of the whole autosomic profile on the clasps, and she showed that in that case there are not Raffaele’s alleles at all. Besides the two belonging to Meredith, indeed, in that marker there are now two more alleles (previously thought to be stutters) that C&V recovered. But those new alleles don’t belong to Raffaele.

It’s just one marker over 16, but it makes Raffaele’s profile incomplete and shows how the presence of all male alleles comes from a mysterious event, certainly not from the crime.
This for the autosomic STRs.

There is still the Y-chromosome profile, perfectly compatible with the one of Raffaele. But C&V reminded the court that the Y-chromosome is not exclusive — it may be shared by other males with a common ancestor.

True, in the database which stores 30,000 male profiles (but only 5,000 are Italians) nobody else was found with that Y-chromosome. Guess who came in to help C&V solve this problem? The president Pratillo Hellmann, in person, who explained that the fact that there’s no one else in the database with that Y-chromosome doesn’t mean that nobody else exists with it. Someone else in Italy must exist and that, for Hellmann, seems to be enough to doubt the value of that piece of evidence.

There was as well the other predicted objection, that many of the guidelines they referred to were after 2007.

And C&V got rid of it in the predicted way, just by saying that the Caddy report dates 1999.

C&V are two scientists, not two logicians, it shouldn’t be too difficult to question their reasoning. Indeed there were arguments that threw them into a crisis.

For instance:

True, the scientific police didn’t follow the guidelines. But how did that bring Meredith and Raffaele’s DNA on blade and clasps?

If the precautions against contamination weren’t taken, why were the two items contaminated with Meredith/Raffaele’s DNA and not with the DNA of those who handled them?

True, the glove was dirty, can you say that dirt was Raffaele’s DNA?

True, the contamination in the lab is possible, but did you know that no test was done in 6 days prior to the testing of the knife? (actually that sounded new to the defense).

Questions they weren’t able to answer.

(Had they followed our discussions, such questions at least wouldn’t have caught them unprepared. But they didn’t follow our discussions…).

Many times they were cornered by the questions of Comodi (who was speaking on behalf of Stefanoni and lectured by all prosecution experts).

But there to solve all impasse — there was Hellmann.

As for the precautions in the lab, especially the one of the negative/positive controls (which, as we remember, was not documented they were done) Comodi/Stefanoni, as we predicted, brought the argument of the ‘of course’:  If  Stefanoni didn’t take note of the controls, it’s because you don’t take note of things you always do. Just like the surgeon who doesn’t write in the report of an operation ‘I washed my hands’, ‘I wore the gloves’, ‘I sterilized the lancets’…
But Hellman came in to help and explained that a surgery room doesn’t have anything to do with DNA… And he stopped the attack.

Having failed the card of the ‘of course’, Comodi/Stefanoni pulled the ace out of their sleeve: the documentation of the negative/positive controls exist! It was delivered to the pre-trial hearing of October 8 2008! (According to them…)

So, Comodi gave to President Helmann two photocopies that document the controls.
The only problem is that Vecchiotti looked at the two pieces of paper and saw they had a different code from the one of the tests made on knife and clasp. Not only that: the codes on the fotocopies were almost unreadable.
Hellman and Zanetti wanted to go look for the proof that the documents had been really filed on October 2008 anyway. But after almost an hour of searching, they couldn’t find anything!

So Hellmann returned into the courtroom and decided not to admit that presumed proof that the controls were done.
Comodi insisted. And here, surprise: not only Helmann said definitely NO, but he pointed out that even if the documentation existed, even if it was really filed on October 8 2008, even if it was perfect, even if the negative/positive controls were done, that wouldn’t have ANY importance, since the contamination could have still occurred before!

Bye Bye Baby…

THE KNIFE IS READY

(for the drawer)

It may look like nothing but instead what Hellmann said was literally devastating for the prosecution team. It left them speechless for a looong moment…

We were at the very end of the hearing and all day Comodi/Stefanoni had tried to demonstrate that the contamination couldn’t have occurred in the lab and couldn’t have occurred in the previous phase (of collecting, transporting, storing).

But Hellman, instead, showed to still believe that the contamination could have occurred before the lab got in possession of the two exhibits!

What a terrible waste of time for Comodoni… (Comodi + Stefanoni)

Knox’s lawyer Luciano Ghirga, instead, got rid of the knife with one only question: ‘Could the knife have been cleaned-up if starch was found on it?’ And C&V answer was, of course: ‘NO’.

‘Bye bye baby’ I titled when the DNA was found on the knife, in those horrible days, when they were telling us they had proof two students had killed her friend. A proof that never arrived.
Today I can return that Bye bye baby, but the other way around, since that imaginary murder weapon can definitely return into its drawer.

So Hellman doesn’t care what happened in the lab! That’s a bombshell for those who know the trial: he seems to have understood that the contamination happened before.

And that is consistent with the constant support Hellman gave to his experts during the whole hearing.

In other words it’s quite clear by now that even James Watson in person could come to defend those tests. But their fate is sealed.

After all, the innocence of Amanda and Raffaele was already proven even at the first trial. It was demonstrated even at the first trial the eyewitnesses were wrong. It was known that DNA below the 50 RFU is not reliable. Or that The Knife was collected by cops. Or that the bra clasp was lost for six weeks and three inspections were run on it. Or that the luminol footprint was going towards Meredith’s room. Or that the footprint on the bathmat was not attributable to Raffaele. Or that the cops lied when they said Raffaele called the 112 after the police arrived. Etc.

But those judges had that idea of guilt, and against an idea nothing can be done.

Well, now they have another idea.

The battle of DNA will continue with next hearings, September 5, 6, 7. More waste of time. Then the closing arguments. Verdict before the end of September.