Amanda Knox and the Murder Mystery

[Stavros]

Murder mysteries, as books, sell millions a year. I don't know what proportion of films concern murder, but on tv more or less every day you can watch -daytime and prime time- a detective solving a murder mystery. In general, the themes are simple: no matter how clever a murderer thinks he or she is, good will triumph over evil, the transgressor will be punished.

In real life, we have murders which go to trial, and where the evidence suggests the accused is there for the right reason -and in some cases it is not an issue. But in others the accused deny their involvement, and through an appeals process doubt is cast on the original judgement. DNA proves he/she could not have done it; witnesses who insist they saw a man in a blue shirt retract their evidence; the case was so shocking the police withheld evidence to ensure a known criminal was 'fitted up' for the crime so it could be closed.

And there are miscarriages of justice based on all or some of the above.

The murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia has become a gruesome circus, but its the language and cultural differences that make this a compelling story.

Just today, the counsel representing Patric Lumumba, wrongly accused by Knox of being the killer, described Ms Knox in the following terms: One side is "angelic, good, compassionate, and in some ways even saintly", but the other side is "Lucifer-like, demonic, satanic, diabolic" and "longs to live out borderline extreme behaviour" he said. The judge in the original trial described the murder as part of a 'satanic ritual', regardless of the fact that no such evidence was put before the court.

Meredith Kercher is the 'nice, clean and tidy, modest English girl' who shared an apartment with a 'loud, sloppy, vulgar American'; the Italian justice system is corrupt, its Keystone cops coldn't find a murder weapon if it was sticking out the victims head; the forensics were not done on the day but up to a month after the incident; and so on and so on.

Or: Knox went from Seattle where she can't buy a drink in a bar, to Europe where she can drink all day and every day; she was young, she smoked dope with friends (as she did with Meredith when they first met), and liked to sleep around and have fun and was not too concerned with her studies -the devil in disguise, or just a young woman free from home? And what about the smooth Italian with a rich father, a young man who carried knives around in his pocket? There are so many ingredients here for sensational stories.

I dont know if Ms Knox was in the bedroom when Meredith was murdered, I don't even know if she was in the house -I do know one man has been convicted. But you start out with a clear case of a four-way 'sex game' gone wrong, and end up with a burglar high on drugs assualting and killing Meredith when she interrupted his crime.

Will we ever know what happened? Is Knox so wicked she will never 'tell the truth' -or has she been telling the truth all along?

[tsdvdman]

GUILTY!!
If you really had nothin to do with the murder then why would you lie and destroy another innocent man's life?

[hippifried]

Will we ever know what happened? Is Knox so wicked she will never 'tell the truth' -or has she been telling the truth all along?

Odds are that she's a pathelogical liar who's been getting away with all kinds of viscious shit her whole life. She just stepped over the line & finally got caught. Oops!

The real question should be: Will we ever care what happened?

[arnie666]

GUILTY!!
If you really had nothin to do with the murder then why would you lie and destroy another innocent man's life?

Well that doesn't do much for her character and certainly paints her as a fucking bitch but that alone doesn't make her a murdering fucking bitch.However I have been following this case for some time and in my opinion she was in that room at the time meredith was killed. Her level of involvement is a matter of debate . .However she has lied and lied ,and certainly will not want to explain why she was there,finally telling the truth.I doubt we will ever know the full truth of what happened on that night,but Knox deserves to be where she is and should stay there.No the picture that is painted of the Policework and knox's involvement is not great,however the actual painting of the picture seems biased in one direction,the US media have really done an excellent job.

I am concerned however,that american pressure, the fact she is a pretty female and pretty females never hurt or murder anyone ,it is known ,we will end up with a level of justice similar to casey antony and OJ. I personally think if she was male, far less of a fuck would be given by the media or her supporters ,apart from close family.

What I find most disgusting about this case is knox's toilet habits. It was alleged she never flushed the toilet after having a dump,it was said she did it to annoy meredith but her defence team say she behaved like that because she was some kind of environmental superfreak,apparently flushing the toilet harms the environment. Whatever the truth,that alone means the human race is better off without some lying, nasty hippy bitch.

[Bobby Domino]

After following the case for a while, I think she had something to do with it. She KNOWS what happened. She's guilty. The only reason this case is still in the media is that she's American and Italian police procedures, forensics & legal system don't concur with ours. Yes, the Italian police did a sloppy job, but doesn't mean she's innocent. She probably would have been cleared had this crime happened here, given the facts.

[Stavros]

What I find most disgusting about this case is knox's toilet habits

Arnie, according to Barbie Nadeau in her book Angel Face, there is enough environmental awareness in Seattle to coin the phrase: If its yellow let it mellow, if its brown, flush it down -I dont know if Ms Knox followed this rule, but if so it would be another cultural misunderstanding.

I was expecting most people to think Ms Knox innocent. She might have been in the vicinity, thats possible, but she must be truly venal and selfish to continue lying if she is guilty; sometimes the obvious is the answer: she wasn't there, she didn't do it. She claims she fingered Lumumba to get the police to stop endless questions with occasional slaps around the head.
Yes, Hippifried, I care. It is about justice, finalmente, whoever it is who commited the crime.

[Faldur]

What I find most disgusting about this case is knox's toilet habits. It was alleged she never flushed the toilet after having a dump,it was said she did it to annoy meredith but her defence team say she behaved like that because she was some kind of environmental superfreak,apparently flushing the toilet harms the environment.

The environmental whacko method is, "If its brown flush it down, if its yellow let it mellow."

Being a Dad with a young daughter studying abroad, this case scares the hell out of me.

[hippifried]

Yes, Hippifried, I care. It is about justice, finalmente, whoever it is who commited the crime.

Tabloid justice doesn't work. It just throws a bunch of irrelevant what-ifs, political silliness, facts out of context, innuendos, & outright lies into the public sphere with no way of knowing the line between fantasy & reality. It only took 4 posts to turn this into a discussion of how long you should let your shit ferment before sending it off so somebody else can play with it. I never really paid much attention to this case, but wasn't it a conspiracy case where 3 people got convicted? Weren't all of them blaming the others? Aren't they the only witnesses to the crime? Is there any reason for anyone to believe anything any of them have to say? She's just going to jail. She'll get out. There's other things happening in the world, so I see no reason to give a shit.

& speaking of which... This...

If its yellow let it mellow, if its brown, flush it down

...isn't about waste, & I don't believe it was coined in Seattle. That little rhyme was in effect during the droughts of the '70s in Flagstaff, when Lake Mary dried up. It was never about the effects of waste on the environment. It's about conserving domestic water supplies in a time of shortage. A lot of towns in that area end up hauling in water by train or truck if there's little or no snow the previous winter. The Grand Canyon Railway hauls tankers of water every trip because there's no ground water at all up there, & practically no surface water. The ranchers have little dams on every dry wash to catch runoff & water their cattle & sheep. It isn't political & never was, Faldur.

As for Amanda Knox & her toilet habits: The story is that she wouldn't flush her turds. There is a school of thought on that, having to do with splashing the piss water on your ass while taking a shit. I don't know what the deal is with water in Italy. I don't think there's a problem in Seattle. It's likely that she was just trying to be an annoying bitch, or she's just a fucking thoughtless pig. She certainly isn't a hippy, Arnie. I'm a hippy. You want to actually know something other than a bunch of lame stereotypes spouted off by assholes who weren't there, just ask.

[tsdvdman]

I hate to say it but she will probably get off. The American media has been portraying her as innocent and getting a raw deal in Italy. And who knows who is doing some behind the scenes work..Hillary? maybe. But America can't fathom the fact that a young cute white girl would commit murder or even conspire to commit murder. Just look at Casey Anthony,,,they let her off plain and simple.

[Stavros]

My original point, was the way in which the evidence that is presented to convict someone of a crime, becomes the evidence that proves they didn't do it. The dna in the blood that put all three convicted of the crime at the scene, we are now told was contaminated. Allegations made at the beginning were dropped because they didn't make sense -that Knox bought bleach the morning after the crime and used it to remove her fingerprints, but failed to remove Rudy Guede's -even though we assume all those bloodstains were mixed. In Nadeau's book she claims the original investigator found a blonde hair in Meredeth Kercher's vagina, something I have never read about since. Evidence presented in court is designed to either convict (Prosecution) or acquit (Defence), it often is not the whole of the evidence. It is that elusive nature of truth that makes the murder mystery such a popular genre in films and literature. Yet the true stories are often more baffling and impossible to solve than the sleuthing genius of Hercule Poirot or Columbo.