Comments

1
I spent a semester of college in Italy. The disdain for Americans was palpable. Kercher was American - an American woman no less. That was all the Italians needed.

There are other biases in the world, and they are not all based on race.
2
Correction: Knox was American.
3
I am so f"ing sick of Amanda Knox. She acts like some sort of champion for the wrongly accused, yet she wrongly accused the COMPLETELY INNOCENT Patrick Lumumba. I don't care what her reasons are. She still did it and by her own logic that would make her has bad as the Italian police and justice system that wrongly accused and convicted her. She has not EVER shown any empathy or respect toward the Kercher family since the murder of their daughter - not at the police station, not after her imprisonment, not during her trial, not after acquittal, not in her book, not in her numerous interviews, not in her "blog" that she barfs up for the West Seattle Herald, and I am assuming not in this film, either (I won't watch it). She has repeatedly ignored the Kercher family's requests to leave them alone and to stay away from Meredith's grave - repeatedly saying she expects their forgiveness, them to allow her to visit the grave, hoping they read her book, blah blah blah. And there's the fact that Rudy Guede was NOT a drifter (he'd live in Perugia most of his life), he was known to and may have been a CI of the Perugian police (FBI speculation based on treatment he received), AND his conviction and sentencing is all based on the premise that he did not commit the crime alone. So who did he commit the crime with? I don't claim to know what happened. I doubt we will ever know. We'll never be rid of Amanda, though, that's for sure. She can't give up being the center of attention and her attitude from the moment Meredith's body was found has been: ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME. It is almost unbelievable. It is for certain revolting. And when she says she spent 4 years in jail when she was innocent? She was found guilty for what she did to Patrick Lumumba and for lying about being beaten by the police. The 4 years she served in prison counted as "time served" for that conviction. It's amazing how she has learned NOTHING in the last 6 years. She's gone from believing she could help the police solve the murder of her roommate (because she's so special), to believing she's some sort of champion for the wrongly accused (when she participated in the oldest finger pointing trick in the book of white women >>> the black guy did it), to believing she will reconcile with Meredith's family and they will embrace her (seriously? how f'in delusional ARE YOU?, because it seems you just get worse and worse and worse). Anyone who thinks AK was distraught when she was imprisoned needs to listen to the three prison intercepts available on youtube - the first three visits of her with her parents. She's not upset AT ALL. She may as well be having coffee at Starbucks. Her parents seem to be confused, telling her to tell the truth and make sure she doesn't lie to her lawyers. This woman is sick. She may or may not be a murderer, but she is disturbed - and the more she opens her mouth and flaunts her freedom mocking Meredith's family she comes off more and more and more as someone who doth protest too much. She never talks about Meredith. She always talks about herself. She is completely self-absorbed and convinced she is somehow special for what she has gone through. She is mistaken. And she seriously needs to STFU.
4
FOXY KNOXY AND FOXY BROWN HAVE THAT IN COMMON.
5
Amazing insight! the story about Amanda Knox is about Amanda Knox!
6
While I have no idea how the murder unfolded or who was involved, there is one thing I am quite sure of: prosecutor Giuliano Mignini is a raving lunatic. He is obsessed with Satanism, and his starting point for each case involves a wildly outlandish Satanic conspiracy. In the Monster of Florence case, when a journalist published unflattering stories about Mignini, Mignini ordered the journalist arrested and charged him with being involved in the murders (a ludicrous accusation).

There are a lot of parallels between this case and the West Memphis Three: police/prosecutors obsessed with Satanism, prosecutions based largely on disapproval of lifestyle, etc.
7
you've got to be kidding me with this trollbait shit, Charles. you're enabling the unhinged like @3, which you've pretty much done all along. I think you get LULZ out of it because it gets white people upset.

Guede left DNA everywhere in that apartment. his guilt is not debatable. he killed that poor girl in such a brutal fashion that he made himself physically ill.

the question is: why were Knox and Sollecito even needed for Mignini's case? she was essentially slut-shamed and imprisoned for being every Italian man's college fantasy.
8
I found the documentary as convincing as your "analysis" is unconvincing. The prosecutor is a raving lunatic whose theories about what happened are deeply improbable. You're trying too hard to make this about race. The only crime the pretty American girl is guilty of is being a little weird (kind of like half the people I know).
9
I was lived in Perugia years ago and studied Italian there. I was friends with Lumumba, and I agree wholeheartedly with everything @3 said.
10
For the record, Mignini has NEVER put forward a theory of 'satanism' in this case. There are so many myths flying around.

Great article, Charles, always good to see a carefully thought out review and not just someone plagiarizing the Friends of Amanda and PR soundbites.

So true about the film's attitude to Meredith Kercher and Patrick Lumumba.

And spot on: Sollecito's contribution is absolutely ZILCH.
11
Knox landed on her feet, scoring a two figure deal writing about lost cats for the West Seattle Herald. Almost like it was planned in advance.
14
@10 Mignini's theory of the crime as presented in a preliminary hearing on Oct. 19, 2008:

"...premeditated and was in addition a 'rite' celebrated on the occasion of the night of Halloween, a sexual and sacrificial rite... In the intention of the organizers, the rite should have occurred twenty-four hours earlier, but on account of a dinner at the house of horrors, organized by Meredith's and Amanda's Italian flatmates, it was postponed by one day. The presumed assassins contented themselves with the evening of 1 November to perform their do-it-yourself rite, when for some hours it would again be the night of All Saints."

He also said Knox "has the look of a she-devil." It's a bit alarming to me that so many Slog readers (and writers) are on board with a witch trial.
15
Having seen the film when it came out at TIFF, following the case for many years as well as attending the earlier Supreme Court hearing in 2013 I can add the following:

-Rudy Guede's lawyer Valter Biscotti had a lot more to say about his client being convicted 'in conjunction with others'. This was left out.

- The Producer Stephen Robert Morse hid his involvement in the project with Brian McGinn and Rod Blackhurst since 2011. They had ALL made inflammatory comments in favour of Amanda Knox over the years, with Morse hastily deleting some (but not all) as the Netflix sale came up. He even called Nick Pisa "a piece of shit" in Perugia in 2011. It was the Danish production company head Mette Heide that approached Mignini and Pisa, who didn't know of Morse's involvement, but that gives the background to this biased 'documentary'.

- Mignini was referring to the Monster of Florence case when he talked of people coming up to shake his hand, the film makes it look like they were congratulating him for putting away Amanda Knox.

- He was referring to it being an inside job when he said an "unknown" man (edited out to make him seem misogynistic) would not have covered Meredith with a blanket.

- The biggest laugh the Toronto audience gave was WITH Nick Pisa when he said "I mean, she's a complete and utter loon".

Disclosure: I'm an editor at the Meredith Kercher case files website www.themurderofmeredithkercher.com and co-administrator of one of the Perugia Murder File sites.
16
@9: look, what she accused Lumumba of is not the bloody flag proving she killed her roommate. it is evidence she cracked under interrogation, like 100s of innocents before her.
17
Charles, several years ago you were writing article after article defending Knox's innocence and her character generally. It began to sound like you were obsessed with her and the case. Now, to you, she's just a generic privileged while girl. What happened?
18
(It basically comes down to the Italian police performing something like Jedi mind tricks on her).

For shame, Charles. Did the NYPD use "Jedi mind tricks" to pull a confession out of the Central Park Five?
19
You know what else is missing from this re-visitation of the case, Dr. Mudede? A reprint of your most epic piece of writing. That voyeuristic, pornographic murder-tastic fan-fictional account of the killing that you wrote and the Stranger inexplicably but memorably published. Remember that? The one that clarified the two most important facts of the case for us plebes to consider: black dick and white pussy? That was a fine piece of literature, Chuck. Why don't you publish that again, for the kids who don't remember?
20
A good documentary about Jedi Mind Tricks. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/…
21
Rudy Guede was the adopted son of a wealthy family and had an excellent lawyer. So why was he convicted? Because -- though he had no prior relationship with Kercher -- he alone left fingerprints in the murder room, and DNA both inside and on Kercher's body, and in his feces; he acknowledged on a recorded phone call his presence at the time of the murder; and he pleaded the Italian equivalent of "no contest."

On the other hand, Italy's highest court found that there was an "absolute lack of biological traces" of Amanda and Raffaele in the murder room. With no motive or other significant evidence, the Court ruled that Amanda and Raffaele "did not commit the crime" -- a much stronger verdict than a "not guilty" verdict would have been.

As to the claim that the crime had been committed by more than one person, the only evidence for that came from Guede himself, as Mudede knows. In his "fast track" trial --which is similar to a "no contest" plea in the U.S. -- Guede agreed to the prosecutor's stipulation that he had carried out the crime with two accomplices, Amanda and Raffaele. When his trial result was confirmed by the Court of Cassation, all the stipulations Guede agreed to became settled judicial truth -- even though the case of Amanda and Raffaele was still working its way through the system. Even worse, Amanda and Raffaele were never allowed the chance to dispute Guede's stipulations in their own trial -- and yet those stipulations were used against them. They also were not allowed to have their lawyers question Guede at their trial -- yet his testimony, in the form of a written statement, was used against them.

The high court, the Court of Cassation, gave the only just verdict. And yet the witch-hunters continue their campaign of hate. I'm so disappointed with The Stranger and Mudede for assisting them.
22
@7 has it right. I feel bad for Amanda Knox, a regular flawed kid who got sucked into a no win situation. Do you remember what it was like to be 19? I doubt I would have handled the overwhelming situation any better. And did you develop as a person under that kind of duress? Of course not - but you expect perfect maturity out of her in that development-arresting clusterfuck? I"m impressed that she's as together as she is ...
23
The tools of sociology are apt to lead us astray when we detach them from their proper macro-societal contexts and use them as crime-solving tools. In seeking to encourage a view that Rudy Guede was the hapless victim of racist white murderers who played on their privilege to escape conviction, Charles Mudede discards all the objective facts in favour of appeals to authorities he should know not to trust.

Playing on Guede's lack of a criminal record is a red herring, given that a) swabs from the victim's vagina, a bloodstain on her bag and bloody handprints and fingerprints throughout her bedroom tested positive to his DNA, and b) he is known to have committed multiple burglaries in the weeks leading up to the murder, acting alone each time. The definitive assertion that Kercher was the victim of multiple attackers, based on one botched legal finding out of many, likewise evades the evidence that was presented at trial. Of seven experts who testified, two argued there had been a single assailant, one that there had been multiple assailants, and four (among them the state pathologist) that the evidence was inconclusive.

There is indeed a racial narrative in this story, but the villains of the piece are the police. It was they who coerced Knox into implicating Lumumba, during the course of an interrogation that Italian courts have acknowledged as being in violation of her rights. Lumumba also says police called him a "dirty black" during the course of his arrest.
24
Thanks @19 - you are so right. I completely wrote off Charles Mudede after that piece. I couldn't read anything by him until this his articles in August about the housing crisis. That was the most vile piece of writing - completely disgusting and irresponsible - I could not believe the Stranger published it .
25
@17 "several years ago you were writing article after article defending Knox's innocence and her character generally."

Obviously you didn't read his articles about his case, or his time he spent in Perugia.
26
"Rudy Guede was the adopted son of a wealthy family and had an excellent lawyer. So why was he convicted? Because -- though he had no prior relationship with Kercher -- he alone left fingerprints in the murder room, and DNA both inside and on Kercher's body, and in his feces; he acknowledged on a recorded phone call his presence at the time of the murder; and he pleaded the Italian equivalent of "no contest."

No, Rudy Guede was convicted in a trial, he had more of a common law version of a bench trial, in which he would had gotten a shorter sentence if he was convicted and waive the right for certain appeals, which happened.

As much as there was incriminating evidence of Rudy Guede at the crime scene, (collected and tested at the same Rome crime lab that the Sollecito and Knox's legal teams browbeaten in their appellate trial) there was as much incriminating direct evidence of Knox and Sollecito's at the crime scene as well. There was a clean up of the crime scene, there is a bloody footprint on the shower mat in the bathroom that was Sollecito's foot size, Amanda's and Meredith's blood was mixed in couple locations throughout the house, including their roommate's room. Luminol spraying showed bloody footprints going back and forth from Meredith's room to the shower.

If anyone who used their money and influence in this criminal case, it was Raffaele Sollecito's family, they hired the best criminal defense attorneys in Italy, who did a very good job in getting all the physical evidence thrown out for Sollecito and Knox in the appellate trial.
27
26 the "evidence" you cite, the "clean up" which relied on receipts for bleach for instance, doesn't exist and never happened. These are lies or gross overstatements that were leaked to the local yellow press by a corrupt prosecutor's office to poison the jury pool. The physical evidence like bleach receipts never showed up in court (because it didn't exist) and the speculative claims were wildly overstated and debunked as not at all consistent with the reality of the tiny random bits of existing evidence.

The Knox case is a great litmus test of who can hold a couple of ideas steady at the same time and still parse information reasonably VS who, for reasons that vary from capacity to cognitive bias to doubled-down stubornness, goes spinning off into irrationality.
28
@27 http://www.newsweek.com/heres-how-eviden…

"These are lies or gross overstatements that were leaked to the local yellow press by a corrupt prosecutor's office to poison the jury pool."

Italy is a Civil Law Nation. Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito was convicted by a jury of six plus two judges..

"The Knox case is a great litmus test of who can hold a couple of ideas steady at the same time and still parse information reasonably VS who"

Thanks for the hyperbole, Clarence Darrow. I actually followed this case since Nov. 2007, (besides reading Charles articles about it, and his interview with Patrick Lumumba) The luminol prints were evidence in the first criminal trial..
29
26 the "evidence" you cite, the "clean up" which relied on receipts for bleach for instance, doesn't exist and never happened. These are lies or gross overstatements that were leaked to the local yellow press by a corrupt prosecutor's office to poison the jury pool. The physical evidence like bleach receipts never showed up in court (because it didn't exist) and the speculative claims were wildly overstated and debunked as not at all consistent with the reality of the tiny random bits of existing evidence.

The Knox case is a great litmus test of who can hold a couple of ideas steady at the same time and still parse information reasonably VS who, for reasons that vary from capacity to cognitive bias to doubled-down stubornness, goes spinning off into irrationality.
30
28 For someone who has followed this case for so long, you have learned remarkably little. You should turn your attention to other activities for which you might have more talent.

The evidence in the first level trial was tossed out by the Court of Cassation. They ruled, for example, that it's impossible to clean a murder scene, removing only the DNA of two defendants, because DNA is invisible. Mistakes like this in first trials are so common in Italy that about half of all convictions in first trials eventually get overturned. If you had been paying attention during the first trial you would have learned that.

Italy has a very different system than we have. No verdict is final until the Court of Cassation renders its verdict, and its indisputable and final verdict was that Amanda and Raffaele did not commit the crime.
31
Amanda who - Or Amanda who-cares anymore?
32
Morgan100 says -"and its indisputable and final verdict was that Amanda and Raffaele did not commit the crime."

Not entirely true. The Court of Cassation decreed in it's final reasoning that Amanda Knox WAS present at the scene during the time of the murder, washed Meredith Kercher's blood from her hands , and accused Patrick Lumumba of the crime in order to cover for Rudy Guede, who she knew was there. They're pretty sure Sollecito had to have been there with her as well.They also upheld Knox's calunnia conviction definitely, thus making her a 3-time liar at best. So all the Court of Cassation really did was let her go by creating reasonable doubt that Knox was or wasn't the one who killed Meredith Kercher.
33
Jesus, Charles. Did you see the scene where Guede's DNA was all over the room? It's not impossible that Guede was framed but there was a lot more evidence for his guilt than for Knox's.

Yes, Knox was wrong to accuse Lumumba, but she did it after being slapped around by the detectives. Is it so hard to believe that in a legal system where a buffoonish prosecutor can sell his accusations based on hilarious theories about Satanism and Seattle, police might be less than scrupulous about using every possible tactic to get a confession? If the filmmakers didn't try to talk to Lumumba they should have, but is it so hard to believe that he wouldn't have wanted to revisit the incident for a documentary on his wrongful accuser?

As for the murder, Knox was guilty of nothing but acting unconventionally and not dressing to the nines. Fuck Italy.
34
The documentary was made by friends of the Knox family, what else were you expecting. Over the years they have all shown time and time again what a racist xenophobic bunch of thugs they all are. From the racist attacks to the Kercher family by Chris Mellas using shill accounts that were traced back to him, to the antisemitic abuse from Knox herself. She has surrounded herself from the outset with well known white supremacists, Lynn Duncan, Doug Bremner, Mark Saha, to name just a few. Then there is the website run by infamous racist Bruce Fischer, I stumbled upon the site a few years ago and immediately reported it to the FBI, it was that bad. This woman, along with her evil supporters, has evaded justice. Only until judgement day though.
35
I am a resident of Seattle and know some of Amanda Knox's friends. They have told me that she freely brags about murdering Meredith Kercher and getting away with it. They say that's all she ever talks about.
36
In the the final Supreme Court report of the case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, the court found the following:

* Knox was present at the cottage during the murder
* Knox and Sollecito had no alibis for the night of the murder
* Knox is a convicted liar who rightly spent four years in prison
* Knox heard Meredith when she was murdered
* Rudy Guede did not act alone
* Rudy Guede did not hold a knife
* Strong suspicion that Sollecito was at the cottage with Knox during the murder
* There was a spot mixed with the victim's blood and Knox's DNA found in the bathroom
* The crime scene was staged
* Knox was aware of the sexual aspect of the crime before it could be determined by the police
* There was no evidence of coercion by the police when Knox accused Lumumba of murder
* Knox's motive for falsely accusing Lumumba for murder was to cover up for Rudy Guede
* Knox's felony conviction won't be affected in any way if the ECHR finds any human rights violations
* Rudy Guede has less motive than Knox to commit crime

All of the above would be more than enough to convict Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for either murder or accessory to murder in every common court of law throughout the world. But not this one. Why? Because of Sollecito's and Bongiorno's corruption through political channels and the mafia. This is now world wide news and is history now written in stone. Everyone throughout the world now knows that both Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito got away with murder, but it will never get away from them so they will never have lives of their own. Basically we own them and their futures of permanent poverty and re-incarceration are imminent.

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