Whoever was in there appears to have made some effort to make things look like a burglary (that is the best explanation for the strewn clothes and the fact that nothing was missing). But that doesn’t mean the window breaking was staged. I find the argument that the window as inaccessible and that the glass was on top of the clothing unpersuasive. I don’t know if forensics got good photos of the glass, how much there was or if we’re just relying on the word of the roommate.
If the window breaking was staged then it was likely done by someone with lawful access- that could be Knox, someone with Knox’s key, Sallecito, Guede invited up by Kercher, one of Kercher’s friends, the landlord etc.
I have not seen any evidence for a staged break in in Filomena’s bedroom. And none was presented that was believable. A video was shown that appeared to show out of focus bits of glass on a dress… the idea being that the room was ransacked first and then glass fell on top from a staged window break. The problem with the blobs in the video was that they were not glass but polka dots on a an article of clothing as shown by other pictures of the same things. There is only Mignini’s claim that it was based on the notion that nobody could have climbed in the window as well as him probably not liking it much since it did not fit his multi-person satanic orgy murder theory.
And it is impressive that the alleged stager was so clever they managed to get glass only inside the room along with the rock… and as for nothing missing. Rudy liked to take money, phones, laptops and other things… From the burglaries we know of ( and allegations that he rifled through girls purses at Discos besides hassling the girls as well) he did not seem to take bulky items or valuable items like jewelry that could be fenced. We are not told what he did not take and cannot judge the value or utility of stealing them. He evidently did not find money there but he did later steal Meredith’s rent money since his bloody fingerprints are on her purse. He did have money to spend at the disco and to flee to Germany and survive there for 2 weeks and the assumption is that it was Meredith’s.
He may have been interrupted by Meredith coming home and after that had little interest in going back to a room he had already searched and did not find any money or items he may have wanted. After getting Meredith’s money and raping her body and cleaning up (and he had over 2 or 3 hours to do all this) it is understandable he had less interest in rummaging through the other bedrooms and left to go to the Disco. He apparently stank according to the people who say him there so evidently did not go to his own flat first to shower.
Someone staged a burglary. It isn’t necessarily the case that the broken window is part of a staged burglary rather then a way some intruder actually got in. Perhaps the murderer came in through the broken window but knew the victim and thought that making it look like a burglary would send the police in another direction.
Well that’s an important point. As others and I have mentioned, there is a small universe of people who would have had much incentive to stage a burglary. And that universe includes Amanda Knox and her boyfriend.
(Further, without knowing anything more, Kercher’s roommate(s) would be the strongest suspects of such a staging. Because (1) only a roommate wouldn’t have to worry about another resident showing up and discovering him or her; and (2) a roommate would have the strongest incentive to try to point the police somewhere else. For example, if a casual acquaintance broke in through the window and murdered Kercher, what would that person have to gain by staging a burglary? In effect, they’ve already engaged in a burglary anyway.)
Anyway, if somebody from that limited universe of suspects is hiding something and can’t account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder, it’s pretty likely that they were involved in the staging/murder.
The idea of a staged burglary came from Mignini and was unsubstantiated. Since then, it has been debunked. He claimed it was staged due to two shards of glass on clothing. Those shards close up were revealed to be polka dots.
Well do you agree that one of the bedrooms had clothing and such strewn around it while the owner of the room testified that the room had been left orderly?
Logically, items strewn around the room does not implicate Amanda. The connection of the messy room and Amanda was invented by the prosecution. It could be explained by various means, namely, during the struggle with the perpetrator and Meredith, or more likely, the perpetrator looking for something to steal.
I’m not sure what your point is. I thought you were claiming that there was essentially no evidence which reasonably supports the hypothesis that somebody staged a burglary or break-in.
Now it seems you admit that there is such evidence but believe it could be explained away.
I think he was looking for money. It was the 1st of the month and rent was due. Meredith had dated casually a guy downstairs and Rudy had hung out there. Also, I think it is likely he didn’t expect to find anyone home and was interrupted when Meredith came home early, for an early night. I don’t think he was planning to take objects, though might have if uninterrupted.
I don’t understand what point you are trying to make. There is a difference between saying that evidence can be explained away and saying that the evidence does not exist.
To have evidence of a break-in is different than having evidence of a staged break-in. Since there is evidence of a break-in, but not any that would say it was staged, there is evidence of an invented idea of a staged break-in. I’m not saying that a lack of evidence of something being staged means it wasn’t. But going the rules in the post, there is nothing that would indicate it was staged from the evidence itself. That part is fallacious. It exists in the mind of Mignini, not in the evidence.
I’m sayinig he made up the staged part, since the evidence for a staging (rather than a break-in) did not exist in the crime scene. He imposed his ideas on the reality before him. He looked for things to support his idea, and those things were shown to be false or unrelated logically to Amanda.
Not really. For example, the ransacking of a room but the failure to take valuable items in plain view is evidence of a staging. Yes, there are other explanations for this evidence but that does not mean it’s not evidence of a staging.
In terms of the rules of the post, it takes a leap to get to the idea of a staging. One has to infer it. Amanda’s DNA is not on the glass or the objects, anyway, even in the unlikely event that there was a staging.
“Interpreting evidence is always a matter of inference.”
Without physical evidence of something, how do you, except by imagination, come up with an explanation? Logic of the situation, yes. But this forms a tautology in this case. She broke the window and staged a break-in (though there is no physical evidence that suggests this) because… why? Because… someone wants it to look like she did the crime. My point was that komponisto showed how you have to have a reason in the situation itself to suggest it. This theory of the staged break-in is being used as a reason to suspect Amanda. The reason to suspect Amanda of a staged break-in is that more evidence is needed to implicate her in the crime. To say that “if Amanda staged a break-in, it would implicate her” may be true, but it would also be true of anyone. It could equally be true of the other two roommates, for example. The only thing that made Amanda stand out in this regard is that she was there first and that someone read into her behavior as significant.
“The reason to suspect Amanda of a staged break-in is that more evidence is needed to implicate her in the crime.”
That’s one reason. A better reason to suspect Amanda of a staged break-in is to note that there is in fact evidence of a staged break-in and to observe that (1) it’s mainly somebody who was closely associated with the victim who would have had a motive to do such a thing; and (2) Knox had a good opportunity to do so.
“only thing that made Amanda stand out in this regard ”
I find this hard to believe, particularly after the multiple explanations given to you. Even if these multiple explanations that leave open technicalities for exploitation by a reader who does not desire comprehension. I get the impression that you are being disingenuous. If not, please reread the grandparent again assuming the sentence “One has to infer it.” was removed.
“I find this hard to believe, particularly after the multiple explanations given to you.”
There’s no way to prove it. But let’s do this:
Please give me a couple of examples of evidence and (possible) conclusions which “require a leap” as well as a couple of examples of evidence and (possible) conclusions which do NOT “require a leap.”
The house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris → There was a fire.
The house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris → There was arson.
Anna would obviously call 2) a leap but not 1). I am aware that a similar process of inference is involved, differing only by degree and yet I am still able to grasp what Anna is trying to say. That Anna has explained what she is trying to say multiple times helps, as does my IQ. Yet I don’t think either of these things are required to get at least some idea of the intended meaning and certainly don’t get the impression that you lack the intellectual resources to do so yourself, should you desire. Agreement, of course, is a different matter.
I will make these observations:
Evidence of a break in increases p(staged break in).
Evidence that the break in was staged increases p(guilt).
One line of reasoning is this:
Evidence of a break in increases p(a break in was staged).
Evidence that a break in was staged increases p(guilt).
There is evidence of a break in.
Therefore, the evidence of a break in increases p(guilt).
This does not follow. Evidence of a break in decreases p(guilt). That is precisely why someone would have motive to stage a break in! Anyone who attempted to increase the extent to which the above fallacious reasoning was applied would be doing something I disapproved of strongly.
“The house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris → There was a fire.
The house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris → There was arson. ”
Well, what if a house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris and traces of some volatile flammable liquid are found there? It seems to me that by Anna’s reasoning, it would be a “leap” to say that this is evidence of arson. And yet most reasonable people would agree that this is evidence of arson.
Anyway, I would appreciate it if you would assume I am trying to discuss this in good faith.
“One line of reasoning is this:
Evidence of a break in increases p(a break in was staged).
Evidence that a break in was staged increases p(guilt).
There is evidence of a break in.
Therefore, the evidence of a break in increases p(guilt). ”
I’m not sure that anyone is making that argument here. At any rate, I am not.
Well, what if a house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris and traces of some volatile flammable liquid are found there? It seems to me that by Anna’s reasoning, it would be a “leap” to say that this is evidence of arson.
That would be evidence of arson. Anna’s reasoning would not call this a leap. As a reminder, the position of Anna’s that you were refuting in this branch of comments is this:
To have evidence of a break-in is different than having evidence of a staged break-in. Since there is evidence of a break-in, but not any that would say it was staged, there is evidence of an invented idea of a staged break-in.
You disagree elsewhere with the premise but here you are arguing against, and misunderstanding (whether motivated or not), the argument.
Then again I do not understand Anna’s distinction. If there is a ransacked room but no valuables are missing, even though those valuables were in plain view, that is evidence of staging. In the same way, a burned house with traces of volatile flammables present is evidence of arson. In either case, it’s easy to explain away the evidence in a way which is consistent with some other conclusion. But in either case, the evidence raises the probability of the conclusion.
“As a reminder, the position of Anna’s that you were refuting in this branch of comments is this:”
Would you mind pointing me to the post where I attempt to refute this? TIA
Would you mind pointing me to the post where I attempt to refute this? TIA
This thing that you did not attempt to refute. Hold that in your mind. Now, consider the thing that you didn’t understand. Put the thing that you didn’t refute in where the thing you didn’t understand was. You can now comment on Anna’s point in ‘good faith’.
That’s completely contradictory to your earlier statements. Before you explicitly said that that the arson example was NOT a leap by Anna’s standards.
And yet the staging example IS a “leap” by Anna’s standards.
And yet there are no fundamental differences between the two examples, according to you.
“If you are interested in understanding the point ”
I am interested in understanding the point. And now the problem has become obvious: Your (apparent) position is self-contradictory.
“I will not engage further.”
It’s your choice, but I think it would be better for you to just acknowledge the contradiction in your position (actually Anna’s position as explained by you) rather than pretend to yourself that I am being disingenous.
A good clarification and I’ll inject “the part of Anna’s position in this branch”.
That’s completely contradictory to your earlier statements. Before you explicitly said that that the arson example was NOT a leap by Anna’s standards.
You are wrong. I distinguish the acceptance of the premise from the validity of the intuitive leap to a particular conclusion.
Your (apparent) position is self-contradictory.
My position is highly specific, self contained, without self contradictions and really not even particularly novel.
I think it would be better for you to just acknowledge the contradiction in your position (actually Anna’s position as explained by you) rather than pretend to yourself that I am being disingenous.
My description now would be far less complementary than that.
“I will not engage further.”
I hereby lower the confidence I place in my predictions of what I may post in the future. My intuition appears to be founded on an incomplete model of likely responses of others.
Sez I: Well, what if a house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris and traces of some volatile flammable liquid are found there? It seems to me that by Anna’s reasoning, it would be a “leap” to say that this is evidence of arson.
Sez you: That would be evidence of arson. Anna’s reasoning would not call this a leap.
Clearly you were saying that the Arson example is not a leap by Anna’s standards.
Next, an earlier exchange between me and Anna:
Sez I: Not really. For example, the ransacking of a room but the failure to take valuable items in plain view is evidence of a staging. Yes, there are other explanations for this evidence but that does not mean it’s not evidence of a staging.
Sez Anna: In terms of the rules of the post, it takes a leap to get to the idea of a staging.
So clearly the ransacking example is a “leap” by Anna’s standards.
And yet you yourself admitted just a few posts back that fundamentally there is no difference between the 2 situations. Do I need to quote you?
It’s completely clear that Anna’s position (as interpreted by you) is self-contradictory.
“My description now would be far less complementary than that.”
Respectfully, I would suggest to you that’s because of your own cognitive dissonance. Put simply, don’t shoot the messenger.
I thought you were claiming that there was essentially no evidence which reasonably supports the hypothesis that somebody staged a burglary or break-in.
The claim was that there was essentially no evidence which reasonably supports the hypothesis that the burglary was staged.
“do you agree that one of the bedrooms had clothing and such strewn around it while the owner of the room testified that the room had been left orderly?”
And yes, I am well aware that there are other possible explanations for this evidence besides staging.
This is a relevant question. It is not evidence that I weigh particularly highly given what I know about witness testimonies, particularly those under motivated prompting. But it is evidence.
The universe of people who would have incentive to stage a burglary consists of just about everyone but actual burglars. If the police think that the murder is part of a botched burglary that throws them off the scent of stalkers, sex criminals and people romantically connected to Kercher (along with anyone who lived there or could plausibly have been invited in). Guede, in particular doesn’t appear to be the brightest guy around. It seems more that plausible to me that he thought staging a break-in would help his case. He left physical evidence everywhere so on the fly he came up with the story of an anonymous attacker entering while he was in the bathroom. Then he breaks the window to try and create evidence consistent with his story. He doesn’t flush the toilet for the same reason.
Or maybe the intruder went through Kercher’s belonging looking for incriminating evidence—love letters say—and then made a mess of the roommates room to cover the search up.
Obviously I don’t have any particular reason to privilege those scenarios but they seem to me about as plausible as two students without criminal experience or evident motive committing a rape-murder and not leaving any physical evidence behind. Remember, a rationale for staging a break-in doesn’t have to be flawless. It just has to have enough surface sensibility that it would seem worth doing to Kercher’s murderer/s.
“The universe of people who would have incentive to stage a burglary consists of just about everyone but actual burglars.”
It seems to me there is a distinction between having any incentive at all and having much incentive. To be sure, it’s possible to dream up lots of scenarios where someone who is a stranger or near stranger would stage a burglary, but that’s just not realistic in my opinion.
Anyway, earlier I asked you the following question:
Do you agree that if a break-in was staged, the likely perpetrator (of the staged break-in) was somebody who had lawful access to the residence?
Am I correct in assuming that your answer to this question is “no”?
I’m distinguishing between a break-in and a burglary. Someone could have broken-in and then staged the burglary or someone with lawful access to the house (they lived there or were invited in) could have staged the break-in and burglary. If the break-in was staged the person(s) who did it almost certainly came in through the front door (there is no other way in if they didn’t come in through the door or the broken window!).
t seems to me there is a distinction between having any incentive at all and having much incentive. To be sure, it’s possible to dream up lots of scenarios where someone who is a stranger or near stranger would stage a burglary, but that’s just not realistic in my opinion.
Yeah, I realize that I’m just inventing scenarios. But someone also invented the scenario in which Amanda Knox a twenty-one year old upper middle class college student with no criminal recrord, Raphael Sallecito, and Rudy Guede plan an evening of group sex/ satanic rites without ever communicating by cell phone, coerce Meredith Kercher into participating and when she refuses Guede rapes her and then the men hold her down while Knox stabs her several times and slits her throat. At some point during this period Guede goes to the bathroom and doesn’t flush for no particular reason. Later, Sallecito and Knox return, toss the other roommates clothing around the room, throw a rock through the window. They also manage to remove every significant piece of physical evidence they left in Kercher’s room, bleach and wash every one of their bloody footprints while not touching any of the evidence implicating Guede.
I’m not sure why my first scenario, where Guede fakes the break-in is any less probable than the one above.
“I’m distinguishing between a break-in and a burglary.”
I’m not sure where you are posting from but to me, “burglary” entails breaking in to a place. Are you using the word “burglary” to mean “theft”?
“evening of group sex/ satanic rites without ever communicating by cell phone, coerce Meredith Kercher into participating and when she refuses Guede rapes her and then the men hold her down while Knox stabs her several times and slits her throat.”
FWIW I am skeptical of the prosecution’s scenario. I think they cooked it up to address a big weak point in their case, which is that they don’t have a clear motive. My position is more limited: Simply I’m reasonably confident that Knox and her boyfriend were involved in the murder.
I’m not sure where you are posting from but to me, “burglary” entails breaking in to a place. Are you using the word “burglary” to mean “theft”?
Burglary entails breaking-in + theft. Breaking-in does not entail theft and therefore does not entail burglary. But I might have made that up myself. My point is just that someone could have broken the window and entered the house with intentions other than stealing something and then tossed some things about to make it look like the reason they entered was to steal something.
Technically, burglary also includes breaking in + intent to commit a certain other crimes. For example,if you break into somebody’s residence in order to commit rape (with no intent to steal anything), that would be considered burglary under the traditional definition.
But anyway, putting aside semantic issues, it seems you basically concede the reasonable point that staging a crime scene was likely to have been done by somebody with a significant connection to the victim.
This assumption that at least part of the burglary/break in was staged seems to me entirely unjustified. The only thing I’ve heard offered to support it is that the broken glass was on top of the strewn clothes, but seriously that doesn’t prove anything… maybe the clothes were just strewn across the room innocently… maybe the glass just happened by chance to end up on top at the end of the clothes being mucked about with.… theres an infinite possible number of explanations that don’t involve anything being staged.
And as to the assertion that it was staged since it looked like a burglary but nothing was stolen, thats simply not true: kercher’s two cellphones were stolen, at a minimum (any number of other things might also have been stolen, but just not noticed missing, due to their owner not being around to point them out)
Sorry, the clothes were strewn across the room innocently? By whom? For what possible reason? If the girl who lived in the room hadn’t said anything about the matter I’d assume she was just messy. But that wasn’t her testimony. The matter of the glass on top of the clothes depends on how much glass was found on top of the clothes. But I agree that it could have happened even if the window was broken first.
The two cell phones weren’t being stolen isn’t evidence that someone broke to steal them since they ended up tossed in someone’s garden and not sold to someone. Something else might have been stolen but 1) the roommates and the family of the victim are probably capable of making a good accounting of Kercher’s valuable possessions. Presumably this was done by the police, though their competence is definitely suspect at this point. And 2) it is improbable that someone breaking in to steal things would only happen to steal those things which belonged to the person they also killed and only those things her family and friends wouldn’t notice missing.
The story that actually explains that a burglary without missing property is that the thief entered, was surprised by Kertcher, killed her (and raped her?) and then panicked and decided not to steal anything for fear it would implicate them.
“Sorry, the clothes were strewn across the room innocently? By whom? For what possible reason?”
I haven’t seen the crimescene, I’m only speculating of course. But does the fact that some friends describe her as a neat person really preclude any possibility whatsoever that she might have had some clothes strewn about? Maybe she was a neat person who cleaned up her room once a day or so, but just hadn’t gotten to her daily cleaning session yet that day when the crime occurred. Or maybe her friends were just being nice by describing her as neat. Or maybe any of a million other things. The point is that there are so many possible explanations for this that it has no evidentiary value—it’s just noise, to paraphrase OP
The clothing and room in question didn’t belong to Meredith Kercher. They belong to the other roommate Filomena Romanelli. The claim that someone had scattered her clothing about the room is based on her testimony about her clothing, in her room. The possibilities are 1) Someone strew her clothes across the room, 2) she is lying about the condition she left her room in, 3) she is seriously misremembering the condition she left her room in.
1, Yes.
Whoever was in there appears to have made some effort to make things look like a burglary (that is the best explanation for the strewn clothes and the fact that nothing was missing). But that doesn’t mean the window breaking was staged. I find the argument that the window as inaccessible and that the glass was on top of the clothing unpersuasive. I don’t know if forensics got good photos of the glass, how much there was or if we’re just relying on the word of the roommate.
If the window breaking was staged then it was likely done by someone with lawful access- that could be Knox, someone with Knox’s key, Sallecito, Guede invited up by Kercher, one of Kercher’s friends, the landlord etc.
I have not seen any evidence for a staged break in in Filomena’s bedroom. And none was presented that was believable. A video was shown that appeared to show out of focus bits of glass on a dress… the idea being that the room was ransacked first and then glass fell on top from a staged window break. The problem with the blobs in the video was that they were not glass but polka dots on a an article of clothing as shown by other pictures of the same things. There is only Mignini’s claim that it was based on the notion that nobody could have climbed in the window as well as him probably not liking it much since it did not fit his multi-person satanic orgy murder theory. And it is impressive that the alleged stager was so clever they managed to get glass only inside the room along with the rock… and as for nothing missing. Rudy liked to take money, phones, laptops and other things… From the burglaries we know of ( and allegations that he rifled through girls purses at Discos besides hassling the girls as well) he did not seem to take bulky items or valuable items like jewelry that could be fenced. We are not told what he did not take and cannot judge the value or utility of stealing them. He evidently did not find money there but he did later steal Meredith’s rent money since his bloody fingerprints are on her purse. He did have money to spend at the disco and to flee to Germany and survive there for 2 weeks and the assumption is that it was Meredith’s.
He may have been interrupted by Meredith coming home and after that had little interest in going back to a room he had already searched and did not find any money or items he may have wanted. After getting Meredith’s money and raping her body and cleaning up (and he had over 2 or 3 hours to do all this) it is understandable he had less interest in rummaging through the other bedrooms and left to go to the Disco. He apparently stank according to the people who say him there so evidently did not go to his own flat first to shower.
I’m a little confused by your answer to number 2. It sounds like you basically agree that somebody tried to stage a break-in. No?
Someone staged a burglary. It isn’t necessarily the case that the broken window is part of a staged burglary rather then a way some intruder actually got in. Perhaps the murderer came in through the broken window but knew the victim and thought that making it look like a burglary would send the police in another direction.
Well that’s an important point. As others and I have mentioned, there is a small universe of people who would have had much incentive to stage a burglary. And that universe includes Amanda Knox and her boyfriend.
(Further, without knowing anything more, Kercher’s roommate(s) would be the strongest suspects of such a staging. Because (1) only a roommate wouldn’t have to worry about another resident showing up and discovering him or her; and (2) a roommate would have the strongest incentive to try to point the police somewhere else. For example, if a casual acquaintance broke in through the window and murdered Kercher, what would that person have to gain by staging a burglary? In effect, they’ve already engaged in a burglary anyway.)
Anyway, if somebody from that limited universe of suspects is hiding something and can’t account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder, it’s pretty likely that they were involved in the staging/murder.
The idea of a staged burglary came from Mignini and was unsubstantiated. Since then, it has been debunked. He claimed it was staged due to two shards of glass on clothing. Those shards close up were revealed to be polka dots.
Well do you agree that one of the bedrooms had clothing and such strewn around it while the owner of the room testified that the room had been left orderly?
Logically, items strewn around the room does not implicate Amanda. The connection of the messy room and Amanda was invented by the prosecution. It could be explained by various means, namely, during the struggle with the perpetrator and Meredith, or more likely, the perpetrator looking for something to steal.
I’m not sure what your point is. I thought you were claiming that there was essentially no evidence which reasonably supports the hypothesis that somebody staged a burglary or break-in.
Now it seems you admit that there is such evidence but believe it could be explained away.
I don’t think there is evidence of a staged break-in. I think there is evidence of a break-in.
Well do you agree that the room’s occupant testified that there had been valuable items in plain view, none of which were taken?
I think he was looking for money. It was the 1st of the month and rent was due. Meredith had dated casually a guy downstairs and Rudy had hung out there. Also, I think it is likely he didn’t expect to find anyone home and was interrupted when Meredith came home early, for an early night. I don’t think he was planning to take objects, though might have if uninterrupted.
Also, Meredith’s $300 was missing, and somehow he had the money to ride a train the next day to Germany.
I don’t understand what point you are trying to make. There is a difference between saying that evidence can be explained away and saying that the evidence does not exist.
To have evidence of a break-in is different than having evidence of a staged break-in. Since there is evidence of a break-in, but not any that would say it was staged, there is evidence of an invented idea of a staged break-in. I’m not saying that a lack of evidence of something being staged means it wasn’t. But going the rules in the post, there is nothing that would indicate it was staged from the evidence itself. That part is fallacious. It exists in the mind of Mignini, not in the evidence.
Does that clarify what I mean?
I’m sayinig he made up the staged part, since the evidence for a staging (rather than a break-in) did not exist in the crime scene. He imposed his ideas on the reality before him. He looked for things to support his idea, and those things were shown to be false or unrelated logically to Amanda.
Not really. For example, the ransacking of a room but the failure to take valuable items in plain view is evidence of a staging. Yes, there are other explanations for this evidence but that does not mean it’s not evidence of a staging.
In terms of the rules of the post, it takes a leap to get to the idea of a staging. One has to infer it. Amanda’s DNA is not on the glass or the objects, anyway, even in the unlikely event that there was a staging.
“In terms of the rules of the post, it takes a leap to get to the idea of a staging. One has to infer it.”
Sorry, but I have no idea what this means. Interpreting evidence is always a matter of inference.
“Interpreting evidence is always a matter of inference.”
Without physical evidence of something, how do you, except by imagination, come up with an explanation? Logic of the situation, yes. But this forms a tautology in this case. She broke the window and staged a break-in (though there is no physical evidence that suggests this) because… why? Because… someone wants it to look like she did the crime. My point was that komponisto showed how you have to have a reason in the situation itself to suggest it. This theory of the staged break-in is being used as a reason to suspect Amanda. The reason to suspect Amanda of a staged break-in is that more evidence is needed to implicate her in the crime. To say that “if Amanda staged a break-in, it would implicate her” may be true, but it would also be true of anyone. It could equally be true of the other two roommates, for example. The only thing that made Amanda stand out in this regard is that she was there first and that someone read into her behavior as significant.
This is how it seems to me.
“The reason to suspect Amanda of a staged break-in is that more evidence is needed to implicate her in the crime.”
That’s one reason. A better reason to suspect Amanda of a staged break-in is to note that there is in fact evidence of a staged break-in and to observe that (1) it’s mainly somebody who was closely associated with the victim who would have had a motive to do such a thing; and (2) Knox had a good opportunity to do so.
“only thing that made Amanda stand out in this regard ”
stand out compared to whom?
I find this hard to believe, particularly after the multiple explanations given to you. Even if these multiple explanations that leave open technicalities for exploitation by a reader who does not desire comprehension. I get the impression that you are being disingenuous. If not, please reread the grandparent again assuming the sentence “One has to infer it.” was removed.
“I find this hard to believe, particularly after the multiple explanations given to you.”
There’s no way to prove it. But let’s do this:
Please give me a couple of examples of evidence and (possible) conclusions which “require a leap” as well as a couple of examples of evidence and (possible) conclusions which do NOT “require a leap.”
That should make things clearer.
The house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris → There was a fire.
The house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris → There was arson.
Anna would obviously call 2) a leap but not 1). I am aware that a similar process of inference is involved, differing only by degree and yet I am still able to grasp what Anna is trying to say. That Anna has explained what she is trying to say multiple times helps, as does my IQ. Yet I don’t think either of these things are required to get at least some idea of the intended meaning and certainly don’t get the impression that you lack the intellectual resources to do so yourself, should you desire. Agreement, of course, is a different matter.
I will make these observations:
Evidence of a break in increases p(staged break in).
Evidence that the break in was staged increases p(guilt).
One line of reasoning is this:
Evidence of a break in increases p(a break in was staged).
Evidence that a break in was staged increases p(guilt).
There is evidence of a break in.
Therefore, the evidence of a break in increases p(guilt).
This does not follow. Evidence of a break in decreases p(guilt). That is precisely why someone would have motive to stage a break in! Anyone who attempted to increase the extent to which the above fallacious reasoning was applied would be doing something I disapproved of strongly.
“The house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris → There was a fire. The house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris → There was arson. ”
Well, what if a house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris and traces of some volatile flammable liquid are found there? It seems to me that by Anna’s reasoning, it would be a “leap” to say that this is evidence of arson. And yet most reasonable people would agree that this is evidence of arson.
Anyway, I would appreciate it if you would assume I am trying to discuss this in good faith.
“One line of reasoning is this:
Evidence of a break in increases p(a break in was staged). Evidence that a break in was staged increases p(guilt). There is evidence of a break in. Therefore, the evidence of a break in increases p(guilt). ”
I’m not sure that anyone is making that argument here. At any rate, I am not.
That would be evidence of arson. Anna’s reasoning would not call this a leap. As a reminder, the position of Anna’s that you were refuting in this branch of comments is this:
You disagree elsewhere with the premise but here you are arguing against, and misunderstanding (whether motivated or not), the argument.
“That would be evidence of arson”
Then again I do not understand Anna’s distinction. If there is a ransacked room but no valuables are missing, even though those valuables were in plain view, that is evidence of staging. In the same way, a burned house with traces of volatile flammables present is evidence of arson. In either case, it’s easy to explain away the evidence in a way which is consistent with some other conclusion. But in either case, the evidence raises the probability of the conclusion.
“As a reminder, the position of Anna’s that you were refuting in this branch of comments is this:”
Would you mind pointing me to the post where I attempt to refute this? TIA
This thing that you did not attempt to refute. Hold that in your mind. Now, consider the thing that you didn’t understand. Put the thing that you didn’t refute in where the thing you didn’t understand was. You can now comment on Anna’s point in ‘good faith’.
I have no idea what your point is. Let’s do it this way:
Please explain to me the fundamental difference between the following 2 claims :
(1) If there is a ransacked room but no valuables are missing, even though those valuables were in plain view, that is evidence of staging; and
(2) a burned house with traces of volatile flammables present is evidence of arson.
None.
If you are interested in understanding the point being made then there is more than enough information available to you. I will not engage further.
“None.”
That’s completely contradictory to your earlier statements. Before you explicitly said that that the arson example was NOT a leap by Anna’s standards.
And yet the staging example IS a “leap” by Anna’s standards.
And yet there are no fundamental differences between the two examples, according to you.
“If you are interested in understanding the point ”
I am interested in understanding the point. And now the problem has become obvious: Your (apparent) position is self-contradictory.
“I will not engage further.”
It’s your choice, but I think it would be better for you to just acknowledge the contradiction in your position (actually Anna’s position as explained by you) rather than pretend to yourself that I am being disingenous.
A good clarification and I’ll inject “the part of Anna’s position in this branch”.
You are wrong. I distinguish the acceptance of the premise from the validity of the intuitive leap to a particular conclusion.
My position is highly specific, self contained, without self contradictions and really not even particularly novel.
My description now would be far less complementary than that.
I hereby lower the confidence I place in my predictions of what I may post in the future. My intuition appears to be founded on an incomplete model of likely responses of others.
“You are wrong.”
Lol, that’s nonsense. Here is our exchange:
Sez I: Well, what if a house has been reduced to a pile of charred debris and traces of some volatile flammable liquid are found there? It seems to me that by Anna’s reasoning, it would be a “leap” to say that this is evidence of arson.
Sez you: That would be evidence of arson. Anna’s reasoning would not call this a leap.
Clearly you were saying that the Arson example is not a leap by Anna’s standards.
Next, an earlier exchange between me and Anna:
Sez I: Not really. For example, the ransacking of a room but the failure to take valuable items in plain view is evidence of a staging. Yes, there are other explanations for this evidence but that does not mean it’s not evidence of a staging.
Sez Anna: In terms of the rules of the post, it takes a leap to get to the idea of a staging.
So clearly the ransacking example is a “leap” by Anna’s standards.
And yet you yourself admitted just a few posts back that fundamentally there is no difference between the 2 situations. Do I need to quote you?
It’s completely clear that Anna’s position (as interpreted by you) is self-contradictory.
“My description now would be far less complementary than that.”
Respectfully, I would suggest to you that’s because of your own cognitive dissonance. Put simply, don’t shoot the messenger.
The claim was that there was essentially no evidence which reasonably supports the hypothesis that the burglary was staged.
Ok, so again my question:
“do you agree that one of the bedrooms had clothing and such strewn around it while the owner of the room testified that the room had been left orderly?”
And yes, I am well aware that there are other possible explanations for this evidence besides staging.
This is a relevant question. It is not evidence that I weigh particularly highly given what I know about witness testimonies, particularly those under motivated prompting. But it is evidence.
The only evidence was a broken window. He provided the unbased theoretical narrative (as usual).
The universe of people who would have incentive to stage a burglary consists of just about everyone but actual burglars. If the police think that the murder is part of a botched burglary that throws them off the scent of stalkers, sex criminals and people romantically connected to Kercher (along with anyone who lived there or could plausibly have been invited in). Guede, in particular doesn’t appear to be the brightest guy around. It seems more that plausible to me that he thought staging a break-in would help his case. He left physical evidence everywhere so on the fly he came up with the story of an anonymous attacker entering while he was in the bathroom. Then he breaks the window to try and create evidence consistent with his story. He doesn’t flush the toilet for the same reason.
Or maybe the intruder went through Kercher’s belonging looking for incriminating evidence—love letters say—and then made a mess of the roommates room to cover the search up.
Obviously I don’t have any particular reason to privilege those scenarios but they seem to me about as plausible as two students without criminal experience or evident motive committing a rape-murder and not leaving any physical evidence behind. Remember, a rationale for staging a break-in doesn’t have to be flawless. It just has to have enough surface sensibility that it would seem worth doing to Kercher’s murderer/s.
“The universe of people who would have incentive to stage a burglary consists of just about everyone but actual burglars.”
It seems to me there is a distinction between having any incentive at all and having much incentive. To be sure, it’s possible to dream up lots of scenarios where someone who is a stranger or near stranger would stage a burglary, but that’s just not realistic in my opinion.
Anyway, earlier I asked you the following question:
Do you agree that if a break-in was staged, the likely perpetrator (of the staged break-in) was somebody who had lawful access to the residence?
Am I correct in assuming that your answer to this question is “no”?
I’m distinguishing between a break-in and a burglary. Someone could have broken-in and then staged the burglary or someone with lawful access to the house (they lived there or were invited in) could have staged the break-in and burglary. If the break-in was staged the person(s) who did it almost certainly came in through the front door (there is no other way in if they didn’t come in through the door or the broken window!).
Yeah, I realize that I’m just inventing scenarios. But someone also invented the scenario in which Amanda Knox a twenty-one year old upper middle class college student with no criminal recrord, Raphael Sallecito, and Rudy Guede plan an evening of group sex/ satanic rites without ever communicating by cell phone, coerce Meredith Kercher into participating and when she refuses Guede rapes her and then the men hold her down while Knox stabs her several times and slits her throat. At some point during this period Guede goes to the bathroom and doesn’t flush for no particular reason. Later, Sallecito and Knox return, toss the other roommates clothing around the room, throw a rock through the window. They also manage to remove every significant piece of physical evidence they left in Kercher’s room, bleach and wash every one of their bloody footprints while not touching any of the evidence implicating Guede.
I’m not sure why my first scenario, where Guede fakes the break-in is any less probable than the one above.
“I’m distinguishing between a break-in and a burglary.”
I’m not sure where you are posting from but to me, “burglary” entails breaking in to a place. Are you using the word “burglary” to mean “theft”?
“evening of group sex/ satanic rites without ever communicating by cell phone, coerce Meredith Kercher into participating and when she refuses Guede rapes her and then the men hold her down while Knox stabs her several times and slits her throat.”
FWIW I am skeptical of the prosecution’s scenario. I think they cooked it up to address a big weak point in their case, which is that they don’t have a clear motive. My position is more limited: Simply I’m reasonably confident that Knox and her boyfriend were involved in the murder.
Burglary entails breaking-in + theft. Breaking-in does not entail theft and therefore does not entail burglary. But I might have made that up myself. My point is just that someone could have broken the window and entered the house with intentions other than stealing something and then tossed some things about to make it look like the reason they entered was to steal something.
“Burglary entails breaking-in + theft.”
Technically, burglary also includes breaking in + intent to commit a certain other crimes. For example,if you break into somebody’s residence in order to commit rape (with no intent to steal anything), that would be considered burglary under the traditional definition.
But anyway, putting aside semantic issues, it seems you basically concede the reasonable point that staging a crime scene was likely to have been done by somebody with a significant connection to the victim.
This assumption that at least part of the burglary/break in was staged seems to me entirely unjustified. The only thing I’ve heard offered to support it is that the broken glass was on top of the strewn clothes, but seriously that doesn’t prove anything… maybe the clothes were just strewn across the room innocently… maybe the glass just happened by chance to end up on top at the end of the clothes being mucked about with.… theres an infinite possible number of explanations that don’t involve anything being staged.
And as to the assertion that it was staged since it looked like a burglary but nothing was stolen, thats simply not true: kercher’s two cellphones were stolen, at a minimum (any number of other things might also have been stolen, but just not noticed missing, due to their owner not being around to point them out)
Sorry, the clothes were strewn across the room innocently? By whom? For what possible reason? If the girl who lived in the room hadn’t said anything about the matter I’d assume she was just messy. But that wasn’t her testimony. The matter of the glass on top of the clothes depends on how much glass was found on top of the clothes. But I agree that it could have happened even if the window was broken first.
The two cell phones weren’t being stolen isn’t evidence that someone broke to steal them since they ended up tossed in someone’s garden and not sold to someone. Something else might have been stolen but 1) the roommates and the family of the victim are probably capable of making a good accounting of Kercher’s valuable possessions. Presumably this was done by the police, though their competence is definitely suspect at this point. And 2) it is improbable that someone breaking in to steal things would only happen to steal those things which belonged to the person they also killed and only those things her family and friends wouldn’t notice missing.
The story that actually explains that a burglary without missing property is that the thief entered, was surprised by Kertcher, killed her (and raped her?) and then panicked and decided not to steal anything for fear it would implicate them.
And let’s not forget, that many stranger-on-stranger rapes are burglaries and crimes of opportunity.
“Sorry, the clothes were strewn across the room innocently? By whom? For what possible reason?”
I haven’t seen the crimescene, I’m only speculating of course. But does the fact that some friends describe her as a neat person really preclude any possibility whatsoever that she might have had some clothes strewn about? Maybe she was a neat person who cleaned up her room once a day or so, but just hadn’t gotten to her daily cleaning session yet that day when the crime occurred. Or maybe her friends were just being nice by describing her as neat. Or maybe any of a million other things. The point is that there are so many possible explanations for this that it has no evidentiary value—it’s just noise, to paraphrase OP
The clothing and room in question didn’t belong to Meredith Kercher. They belong to the other roommate Filomena Romanelli. The claim that someone had scattered her clothing about the room is based on her testimony about her clothing, in her room. The possibilities are 1) Someone strew her clothes across the room, 2) she is lying about the condition she left her room in, 3) she is seriously misremembering the condition she left her room in.