The mega post is going to be 11 posts. Since that is a lot to read I’ve decided to preface it with a summary of what each post contains.
Post 2: The Alibi
Amanda and Raffaele’s account of what they were doing the night of the murder is contradicted by physical evidence and eye witnesses.
1) Amanda claims to have been at Raffaele’s all night on the computer but the computer shows no human interaction for the entire night. A witness saw Amanda leave Raffaele’s apartment and another witness saw them together near the cottage.
2) They claim to have slept until 10-10:30am but someone was using the computer at 5:30am for half an hour and someone turned on Raffaele’s mobile phone at 6am. Amanda was also seen outside the supermarket waiting for it to open at 7:45am
3) They changed their alibi multiple times. Raffaele was originally at a party without Amanda, then he changed that to at home with Amanda. That was revised to Amanda went out at 9pm and I stayed home and when she returned home at 1am she may have been wearing different clothing. Raffaele then changed his story to he was not certain if Amanda was with him or not. Amanda’s story changed from being at Raffaele’s to being at the cottage with Patrick and hearing Meredith screaming while Patrick raped and killed her. She changed this back to I was at Raffaele's and we did not leave the house.
The inability to give a straight answer to the very basic question of what were you doing the night of the murder as well as the fact that even after changing your answer multiple times the final answer is a lie that is contradicted both by physical evidence and by witnesses is pretty damning.
Post 3 November 2
There are several things wrong with the events of November 2 before the body was found.
1) Amanda comes home to find the door wide open, blood in the bathroom, a bloody footprint, and feces in the toilet. She also completely fails to notice the nine bloody footprints in the hall, the broken window, or her missing lamp. She goes about her day as if none of things happened.
2) There is a major inconstancy between Raffaele and Amanda’s account of what happened when Amanda returned to Raffaele’s. In Amanda’s version she calmly returns and cleans the water spill and they have breakfast. It is only when they are having coffee on the veranda that she mentions the weird things at the cottage. In Raffaele’s version she returned running in a panic and there was no breakfast.
3) Filomena asks Amanda to call Meredith. Amanda tries each phone once for 3s and 4s which is less than required for the voicemail to pick up. Amanda would later claim the phone just kept ringing and ringing. Amanda never tries to call Meredith again despite claims of panic over Meredith’s safety. Amanda made these calls just to register a call but she knew no one would answer.
4) Amanda and Raffaele called 911 20-25 minutes after the postal police have already arrived.
5) The phone call to 911 is suspicious. The 911 operator automatically realizes there is something abnormal and is suspicious of Raffaele.
6) In her email home Amanda claimed that they tried to break down the door and climb up the window to get to Meredith’s room prior to the Postal Police arriving, but when the Postal Police arrive they don’t express any concern and actually lie and say it is perfectly normal for Meredith to lock her door so there is nothing to worry about.
7) Amanda makes a phone call home to her mom at 3am Seattle time. At this point only the broken window had been discovered and according to Amanda there is nothing to be concerned about. When asked about this call Amanda denies making it. When confronted with her phone records she claims she doesn’t remember what motivated her to call home at 3am.
8) According to the police Amanda had body order and smeared makeup which is not consistent with her claim that she had taken a shower two hours prior to their arrival.
Post 4 The Confession
Despite reports of abuse there was none. The interrogation of Raffaele started at 10:40pm. Confronted with his phone records and the fact that he called 911 after the police were already at the cottage Raffaele changes his story to I was lying because Amanda asked me to. I was home alone. She went out at 9pm and returned at 1am possibly wearing different clothing.
Amanda was not supposed to be interrogated but since she was in the police station they asked her to clear up some questions. This started after 11:30pm and by 1:45am she had confessed to being in the cottage twice and her statement had been typed. We don’t know how long it took Amanda to confess but her first confession happened before Minini was present. Minini was sent for and he arrived at about 1am. That means Amanda cracked in about an hour and likely less.
Questioning stopped at 1:45am but Amanda chooses to make a spontaneous statement at 5:45am that confirmed her previous statement. The original confession would be excluded as evidence since she was a suspect before 1:45am but was treated like a witness until 1:45am when her status was changed. The spontaneous statement was allowed because that was after she had been offered a lawyer.
The confession was not the product of abuse and more importantly Amanda places herself where a witness saw her at the time the witness claims to have seen her. The confession also has minor other details that ended up being confirmed by witnesses and physical evidence. False confessions don’t end up matching the other evidence so her confession is almost certainly true with the exception that she has diminished her role and substituted Patrick for Rudy.
Post 5 Things Amanda Should Not Have Known
Amanda knew that Meredith’s throat had been slit and that she was killed by the closet even though she was in the kitchen when the door was kicked open and Meredith’s body was covered. Paola who was there when the door was opened said it was dark and you couldn’t see anything but a foot. The body and most of the floor was covered. On the stand when Amanda was asked how she knew these details she claims she heard them from people. When asked who she would not identify anyone – it was just random people that she was talking to. Only someone involved with the crime would know these details and Amanda’s refusal to identify someone who she spoke with that told her these details makes it fairly obvious she is lying about how she came to know them.
Part 6 Break-in Staged
The break-in was staged. This was immediately apparent to the postal police and Filomena, whose clothes had been tossed around the room but none of her drawers had even been opened to search for valuables. The choice of entry point was illogical and maybe impossible: There were no signs that anyone was in the backyard, there were no traces or markings of anyone scaling the wall, the glass distribution only makes sense if the window was broken from the inside with the shutters closed, and the glass was on top of the stuff that was ransacked. Further, Meredith’s blood mixed with Amanda’s DNA was found in the room which means someone was in the room after Meredith was killed but Rudy’s footprints go straight from the body to the front door.
The only advantage to staging a burglary is to throw suspicion off people who would normally have access to the building. That would be Laura, Filomena, Amanda, and the four boys from downstairs. Since everyone was out of town except Amanda she is the only person who would benefit from staging the break-in.
Part 7 Multiple Attackers
An independent medical expert from Rome as well as the local coroner testified that there were multiple attackers. Raffaele’s expert testified it was one attacker from behind. Amanda’s expert testified it was one attacker from the front.
The multiple attackers question hinges on if you believe a physically fit girl who is attacked while standing up would allow someone to inflict 47 wounds without fighting back. These wounds were from distributed evenly on the left and right side and included being hit, being stabbed, being cut both seriously and just to inflict pain, and bruising from having both her arms and her head restrained. There were no defensive wounds or anything under her nails.
Witnesses also place multiple people running from the cottage after hearing a scream. The accounts of these witnesses fit perfectly with statements from other witnesses as well as with the location of the dumped mobile phones.
Post 8 The Many Wolves Theory
Someone both cleaned the house and staged the body long after Rudy was gone. This fact in and of itself makes Rudy as a lone wolf impossible. So at a minimum it had to be Rudy plus someone else. When we consider who could have helped Rudy the only answer is Amanda and Raffaele. A normal burglar would have no reason to clean or stage the body nor would they feel comfortable spending that much time in the cottage. This, much like the staged burglary, only makes sense for a resident of the cottage or someone who would have access to it. Further, there is also no logical explanation of why an accomplice would clean everything except evidence that incriminated Rudy.
Post 9 Footprints
The footprint in blood on the bathmat is probably Raffaele’s. The head of Italy’s print identity division as well as an independent expert asked to consult by the court testified that they can exclude Rudy with certainty and that the footprint is a match for Raffaele. The defence expert testified that the other two experts did the measurements wrong.
There were nine Luminol hits and at least eight are footprints. Seven of these form a path from Meredith’s room to Amanda’s. Two had both Amanda and Meredith’s DNA. Two were a match to Amanda based on partial markers. One was a match to Raffaele based on partial markers. There is no reasonable explanation for these prints except that two people with feet similar to Amanda and Raffaele were walking around with Meredith’s blood on their feet that they later cleaned.
The pillow has a footprint in blood that is a size 7 female Ascis shoe. The head of Italy’s print identity division as well as an independent expert testified that it was a size 7 female shoe. The defence expert argued that it was actually a size 11 men’s shoe and that the smaller print is due to the pillow being a soft surface. It is just a coincidence that the print matches Amanda’s shoe size.
When it comes to the bloody footprints it is a simple question of do you believe the head of the print identity division and an independent expert or do you believe a defence expert that is paid to say anything?
Post 10 DNA
Meredith’s blood was found in five locations mixed with Amanda’s DNA. This included a sample in Filomena’s room where the burglary was staged. This could not be explained by Meredith’s blood coming in contact with random Amanda DNA from skin cells.
The bra clasp had Raffaele’s DNA. There were issues with the collection process of this piece of evidence but despite those issues there is still no plausible explanation of how contamination could have happened. Theoretical risks of contamination are not sufficient to exclude evidence. Raffaele’s original expert was let go because he was not willing to testify that contamination was a legitimate concern.
The knife had Meredith’s DNA. There was no risk of contamination but the defence argued that the result was unreliable because the DNA was LCN. LCN DNA is not used in the United States yet but it is used in Europe. The defence’s argument amounted to an argument against the advancement of science.
When confronted about the knife Raffaele manufactured a fake explanation for how the DNA got on the knife. In an effort to explain away evidence Raffaele actually incriminates himself since only if he knew it was possible that Meredith’s DNA was found on the knife would he have a motivation to fabricate a lie to explain the DNA.
Post 11 Small Things
The day after the murder Amanda had a scratch on her neck and a piercing hole in her ear ripped. They were not there the day before according to her roommates. Amanda claimed it was a hickey and that the ear was from a piercing attempt gone bad. The mark does not look like a hickey and the excuse for a piercing attempt gone bad makes no sense given it was her first piercing.
Amanda’s lamp—her only light source-- was in the victim’s room placed on the floor by the bed. The only explanation is that someone was using the lamp as a light source while they were looking for something on the floor -- maybe a missing earring.
Amanda has a series of freak out attacks. Amanda was perfectly fine at the police station until she was called to be fingerprinted. At the point she started freaking out and hitting her head with both her hands – she was not a suspect and all the individuals with regular access to the cottage were asked for fingerprints. This behaviour would present itself again two days later when the police asked them to come look at the knives. Amanda again freaked out and had to lie down. This happened a third time when she was confronted by the news that Raffaele was no longer corroborating her alibi.
An inmate (Aviello) testified for the defence claiming that his brother and a friend killed Meredith because they got the address wrong on a job. Aviello is followed by three inmates who claim that he bragged to them that he was being paid by the Sollecito family to make up the story as a way to confuse the jury. A month later Aviello himself admits that he was paid and that Raffaele actually told him that Amanda killed Meredith and that Raffaele was there.
