As Kristina put it while e-mailing WSB to share this New York Times link (which a few others have pointed out to us as well), “West Seattle-ites don’t hit the NYT all that often!” Seattle-based NYT writer Timothy Egan has written a long, opinionated look at the case of Amanda Knox, the Arbor Heights student who is about to testify at her murder trial in Italy. See it here.
Incredibly poor, one-sided journalism, which is sad because “The Worst Hard Time” is a fantastic book.
Say this much, at least this piece in the right section of the NYT: Opinions.
Anyone who has really been following the FACT is this case has come to the conclusion that there simply isn’t nearly enough evidence against Knox or her boyfriend. The case has been so bungled by the police and so incredibly misrepresented in the European media, it isn’t even possible at this point to know what really happened. And the prosecutor (who is under indictment for abuse of power, but still allowed to presecute this case!) is clearly either narcissistic, mentally ill, evil, or all of the above. And Miss Knox may very well have her entire life destroyed because if it. Sad.
I honestly don’t know if Amanda Knox is guilty or innocent. Everyone I know who knows her and her family is sure she’s completely innocent. And it does seem really far fetched that a young college student with absolutely no history of violence or getting into trouble would suddenly brutally murder her roommate with a knife during an orgy. And it certainly sounds like the prosecution and case have been mishandled. But I can’t really know. As an observer of this website and others, I do find it odd that so many people who don’t know much of anything about the case (other than perhaps the tabloid stories and headlines) are so adament that she’s guilty. They really seem to want to believe the worst in someone they don’t know and have never met. And no matter how much independent reports such as this one (or the one on 48 Hours) seem to shoot major holes in the case, they dismiss them and still want to believe she’s guilty. What does that say about them?
I read the comments on the NYT article, and so many of them concentrate on the fact that she didn’t seem to be sad, and that she was strange or “not a normal girl” and therefore must be involved. I don’t know if she was involved or not, but she could be weird and not “normal,” mentally ill even, and still not be guilty. Maybe she didn’t like Meredith and wasn’t very sad afterwards. Maybe she didn’t grasp the seriousness of what had happened. Still doesn’t make her guilty. Honestly, she does sound a little odd to me. But that’s not the point. The facts of the case need to be figured out, to the fullest extent that this can be done. There is apparently at least some concrete evidence implicating her, and that’s what should be in question.
The DNA evidence is proving to be as well-handled and as incriminating as DNA evidence ever is at such trials.
The last two hearings have very publicly exposed several of the key myths which have been aggressively propagated over the Internet and through other media for many months.
Let’s first speak about the double knife DNA. It has now become pretty obvious that:
* It doesn’t match half of Italy as falsely claimed
* It doesn’t have a 20% chance of being Meredith’s as falsely claimed
* Stefanoni never declared herself that the DNA “was unreliable” as falsely claimed
* The DNA has not been amplified “500 times” as falsely claimed
Patrizia Stefanoni has not stated that Meredith’s DNA was extracted 500 times from the knife sample, as some people with what seemed a google-level knowledge of molecular biology were claiming to muddy the waters.
The DNA was actually extracted 50 times from Meredith’s specimens and was used to compare it to other biological traces, including the one found on the knife. And it provided the forensic team with good samples to be compared to the traces found on the knife.
Two genetic profiles are identical and therefore belong to the same individual if a) they are in the same position, and b) they have identical shape and dimension. In this case, each peak produced in the original samples exactly corresponds to the peaks yielded by the knife sample, position, shape and dimension… Say so long to the “matching half of Italy” myth!
Furthermore, Stefanoni excluded any possibility of contamination in the lab, stating that it had never once occurred in her lab for at least the last seven years, and every precaution was taken in order to exclude possibility of contamination so that different traces are not mixed.
Contamination during the collection phase was also excluded: the forensic team that found the knife was a different one from those who searched the cottage, so how could Meredith’s DNA possibly have been “transferred to the knife”?
Furthermore, the knife was put in a shoe box after it was bagged, and it stayed there until it reached the lab. And once again… DNA doesn’t fly, it doesn’t creep, and it sure doesn’t penetrate a plastic bag!
Perhaps someone can elighten me as to the significance of the DNA evidence. So what if they found Amanda’s DNA at the crime scene? Didn’t she live there?
I haven’t read the article yet and this is PURELY my opinion: I do think she did it. She is off. The pictures of her at her trial could be of a graduation. It’s all a gut feeling. I would not convict her on that. But it’s clear as day to me. There is a complete lack of living in reality in her behavior. I think they were doing a fantasy thing and it got out of hand. I do believe she is ill.
I repeat, I would NOT convict her on that. But she did it.
Dear Ellenater – I pray to the gods that you never end up on a murder trial jury involving anyone I know. You say you wouldn’t convict her on your gut feelings but to have such a closed mind based on those feelings precludes your ever being objective. People who claim to know the truth about a crime despite no evidence scare the hell out of me.
hi to everybody,
I just feel so disgusted by the fact that such a big magazine as New York Times looses time and energy, space for falsification of the situation around the ritual homicide of poor Meredith Kercher – an innocent girl sacrified by couple crazy gone brutal students Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito and someone else of satanist sect who is really important and powerfull that can not be yet touched by even the persecution of law, but everybody hopes that he will be found out soon. Some part of mass media obviously does a false propaganda on propose regarding this homicide. They try to show always the victim in black dress as a dark lady while they show often the images of foxy Amanda in white dresses with her so called “scared” view. It is really shamefull and un- human approach towards the memory of the victim. It is also obvious that there is some powerfull occult organisation behind all this propaganda, it is about some kind of international net of occult sect including powerful people, otherwise they couldn’t reach such important facilities as mass-media and web for attacking the justice representatives and for creating a false “innocent” image of Knox. She went for shopping of sexy lingerie with her boyfriend right the day after of the death of Meredith. While the police was taking the pics and evidence around the fresh body of Meredith, Amanda was smiling satisfied and kissing her boyfriend right there few steps far, it is all taken by webcam and broadcasted by the various tv channels…She has changed her mind almost 100 times on how the things went on about the homicide of Meredith, she accused innocent people, invented ridiculous, absurd things and every time all her declarations were against her previous declarations, she is always mentally absent and smiling during the process. She feels as star, she produced even a film about her criminal adventures while being in prison (!!! who can do it if not the one that is privileged by powerful supporters???)))) and now her last invent is that she was treated badly by police…How anybody can believe this foxy, cruel person? after all these how is possible to take serious anything she says? Will she ever say the truth? even if one day she will say the truth, nobody will believe her, cause she lied always until now!!! I post here a link of videoclip where appeared the last time the victim – poor young girl Meredith Kercher just few months before she was killed brutally, sacrified namely the day of halloween.
I just beg anyone who has a piece of consciousness – please, have a respect to the memory of that girl and don’t let that her murderers go out. Peace to Her Soul:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B7qGMtyDIg
You are the whack job. Amanda went shopping for new underwear as she was locked out of the crime scene. There is NO DNA or hair from Amanda in Meredith’s room and they found the killer, complete with a confession and DNA and blood samples. The Italian cops contaminated the crime scene and Amanda was beaten and coerced by the cops for a confession. Can you imagine for one second what they put her through=do you think that something like that couldn’t happen?
And by the way, where are the other roommates from the house? They FLED the country- they were Italians and fled as soon as they heard-nothing wierd about that huh?
Stop being such a tabloid whore and get your brain on….that is horrible that Meredith died but other lives shouldn’t be ruined as a result.
This is horrible and poor Amanda and Rafielli as they are being martyred to the public for tabloid media bullsh*t. They are twisting everything to keep this sensationist and exciting-how dare the media use real people’s lives and destroy them just to keep the tabloid rush going-that is unconsientable!!! The American journalists should be standing up to this instead of feeding it. You should be ashamed of yourselves!!
Amanda is an American, she is one of ours and we need to stand up to all this hype. It could’ve been YOU for goodness sakes. It could have been any one of our kids…
And shame on the media for attacking and focussing all on Amanda. They also accused Rafielli-and he’s not even hardly in the paper-yet they ripped Amanda apart and distorted all this stuff about her…sexist pigs! How is this justice? It’s just paparazzi crap that is ripping apart a young American normal kid…have a heart here..and you are feeding into it!
Check your facts, Amanda is innocent-there is NO evidence-stop reading tabloid crap and start thinking for yourself!! I repeat, READ the evidence, there is NOTHING!! Can I interest you in some farmland in South Dakota?
Also thanks to Timothy Egan for an excellent expose in the NYTimes. Finally, someone is looking at the truth. Instead of the terrible coverage by some of the other media outlets in this country.
Justice in the US is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. The media has made Amanda guilty and there is no evidence against her.
Timothy Egan did a great service in writing that article, thank you for standing up to justice.
the comment of nun june is without any base and nonsense. It is usual for all debunkers working for such satanist and occult powerful organisations which make pressure on justice organs across mass media, across their slaves working in secret services or justice organs, or across the slaves as nun june which fakes to be an average disappointed “citizen” while is just a poor debunker and disinformator. I hope that I’m mistaken, but even if you are really an average citizen, i guess your opinion is manipolated by that shameless propaganda for the favour of assassins. I can be only sorry for you in this case…
first of all it doesn’t matter if Amanda is american or african or anything else, the justice is the same for everybody. The americans must be the first for requiring the punishment of guilty and making justice independently from the nationality, origins. Only this way you can bring an honour to your nation and country, otherwise you all seem just poor manipolated mass being in complicity with murderers. Stop watching the drama of the humanity by american eyes if you wanna be a part of the Humanity. Would you defend in the same way if the suspected were arabs, muslims, chinese???!!! It is a real shame for the people who pretend to be considered as civil and evolved.
Second – it may happen only to the kids of those who are the irresponsable parents which ignore what is going on with their children or actually such parents even push their children into the abyss for several reasons and favours expected in exchange…
Who knows how many other victims are sacrified by that pseudo – organisation or would be sacrified if they wouldn’t be stopped, if Amanda and her boy friend will continue covering them, who knows if Amanda and her boyfriend would do again any other sacrifice maybe for “thanking” their occult “god” once they will be free…there are many questions to be cleared and your pressure is not helping out for justice. These are the things which happen every day in all over the world and you nun june, or me, or anybody else will be responsable for these ritual homicides until we will not confess the existence of the problem, until we will not condamn the guilty independently from their social racial origins, until we will not require the most severe punishment for the leaders of such sects, org.s and so on…so wouldn’t you punish Jeffrey Dammer only because you wouldn’t like to ruin his life? no matter that he killed brutally so many people, oh, come on, by your opinion, we can not get back those victims, let us be kind with that monster serial killer, we shouldn’t ruin his life, let him go around and continue killing the people, one day we hope he will get bored and stop by himself…This is ridiculous, you know that you sound ridiculous. These 2 guys knew what they were doing, they should think about the consequences of their crime before doing what they did. Themselves ruined their lives, but first of all they ruined the life of a young innocent girl with her parents, people who loved her. Don’t you feel sorry for the victim or for her parents? you take care about the possible assassins, their parents and not about the victim? what kind of mentality it is? Everyone make own decision and must answer for it. Many of serial killer, maniacs, satanists are usually very young (unfortunately), so what we do? let them free only cause you don’t wanna ruin their lives? and what about the lives ruined by these monsters? don’t you feel sorry? Instead of fighting against, stopping the activity of such occult sects which ruin the lives of young people, you prefer to shut the mouth to justice cause otherwise you are sorry for the young assassins…
i don’t know whith what courage you tease the brain of others if you personally are not able to use yours properly, cause otherwise you should take and watch all reportages done from that case by the beginning. Your foxy Amanda is always smiling satisfied, I never could find even a trace of sorrow or being sorry in that creature for what happened to the victim. She changed her declarations God knows how many times. Even herself doesn’t know any more who she is, it seems she has got some kind of multiplicity of personality, cause otherwise it is impossible that in every new declaration she was in different place doing different things in the same time. Where are your evidences to “save” Amanda, nun june? Come on, show them, i’m really curious.
Timothy Egan is just another paid slave of the occult system, he couldn’t however do his job in excellent way, by other hand it is not his fault. It is difficult to cover the truth when it is too evident. The people is not so stupid as you would like them to be, cause the truth is coming out, you want it or not. You just need a little more patience, as said Guns n Roses, you will see…
By other side, even without waiting the official conclusion of this case, all is really clear and in front of everybody. This perverted, outr off head couple were seen at the place of homicide by witnesses right during the murder time, there were found their dna, other biological traces all over at that home. Furthermore, the principal witness which is under protection actually, saw a man with Amanda Knox (she presented that man as “uncle” while her sister didn’t remember any “uncle” around there), – who may be so called occult “master” for these 2 stupid young people which destroyed their lives by themselves believing that they could reach a power, richness and popularity “selling their souls to devil” across this really stupid and cruel occult rituality – sacrifying a poor, innocent person on that stupid halloween day . Yes, they reached the popularity, but in the worst of ways – they are popular for being murderers now, they are disgusting the view of all world every time when they come out for few minutes on tv or papers. They are lost and confused, this is the logical end for who chooses the “dark side”. i think at least now, they could have a last chance – to confess what they did and especially – to confess for which organisation they did it, by the names and positions of those persons. I know, it sounds impossible, as the real “managers” are powerful people, probably these guys never will confess the truth completely, they are scared totally, these guys were just 2 stupid executors as i said before. By being promised a lot of nonsense which never may be exchanged with the human life – human life is much more precious and higher value than richness, famousness and other silly temporary fun…Or who knows, maybe they are just manipolated mentally, i repeat that Amanda Knox in most of times seems absent mentally, she doesn’t seem the one who intends what is going on around, what she did and when..
It is obvious for everybody, it is no the first time that we have similar cases. The people got immediately what was happened when the first time that ritual homicide was announced, most of the people said: “here we are, the “monsters” are back again. This time they recruited the students, but the modus operandi is always the same”…
The last thing that I would like to say to Amanda’s father: there is nothing to be proud in what you have produced, you may feel only shame and if you are really a good parent, then you should do something at least now to save your child from the abyss where you sent her – rip her off from the criminal minds, you are still in time…
I think you should better spend your time at a psychiatrist. Sounds like you’re the satan worshipper… I don’t know what you personally have against these people but regardless, if you are watching this closely, you will see that there was NO DNA from Rafielli or Amanda in the room where Meredith was murdered-the murderer already confessed and more and more evidence is pointing to a single murderer, who already confessed to the murder-Rudy Guede. The room was too small by all testimonies and examination, to fit 4 people. Amanda was beaten by the police and forced to an untrue confession for 14 hours. The knife taken from Rafielli’s has been determined to be a different size than the wounds and even Meredith’s sister is standing up for these kids.
Expert lawyers all over the place are saying that these two are totally innocent-I guess Yale and Harvard Law School Professors have even examined the case and have come to her defense!
Anyway, I really hope you can get ahold of yourself and find the facts and learn instead of being such a wacko with all this satanic crap. Where the hell are you getting off on this horrifying trash you are spewing.
Justice will be served and Amanda and Rafeilli will and should be free-they did not murder Meredith Kutcher. Let justice serve the truth. And PS neither Rafe or Amanda have ANY police record, not even a traffic ticket.
Sorry, comment time is over.
| 16 COMMENTS