Rebuttal to “Angel Face” the Book about Amanda Knox

After reading Angel Face by Barbie Nadeau I came away with the impression that Seattle student Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito might be guilty of the murder of her flat mate Meredith Kercher. However as more attention has come to the case it has been clear that they are innocent and that there were a number of errors of fact in the book which I outline below. For more background read my writings about the case here.

p 36: “Amanda [told police that the night of the murder] she went back to Raffaele’s house where they downloaded a movie … and watched Amelie…but police computer technicians would determine that Raf did not download anything that night.”

In fact the police destroyed several computer hard drives of obtained from Raffaele’s apartment. So there is no way to verify this statement.

p 38: “Antonio Curatolo…is a homeless man… He testified that he saw Amanda and Raffaele looking down toward the gate at 9:30 pm. He said they returned to the Piazza Grimana [where he lived on a bench] again at 10:30 pm.”

Antonio Curatolog said he saw persons in Halloween costumes and disco buses. The night of the murder was November 1 which is the day after Halloween. In spite of the fact that the police were aware that discos are closed on November 1 (All Souls Day, a somber holiday) they let this testimony go forward. Curatolo was also using heroin at the time and is now in prison.

p 39: “Nara Capezzali… around 11:00 or 11:30… heard a scream…then she heard three or four people running…she was upset all night…”

The Italian magazine Oggi reported that Nara was hard of hearing and was recently in a psychiatric hospital. The prosecution claims that the Amanda and Raffaele working with convicted killer Rudy Guede staged a breakin after the murder by throwing a rock through the window. If Nara stayed up because she was upset, why didn’t she hear the rock after the scream? Also there were hundreds of people in the area but no one else heard a scream.

p 42: “[Nov 1 12:35] The postal police arrived to find Amanda and Raffaele standing outside [with a] mop and bucket…”

This implies that there was a clean up of the crime scene. Luminol testing would later reveal that there was no clean up at the scene, and no bleach was found on the knife that the prosecution claimed was the murder weapon. No blood was found on it either.

p 46: “[the body was covered] “Criminologists agree overwhelmingly that covering the body is almost always the mark of a woman, especially if it is done after the murder.”

This is not evidence that Amanda was involved in the murder.

p 47: “Patrizia Stefanoni…picked up Meredith’s bloodied bra from the floor…[and said] we’re missing a piece of the bra clasp.”

The bra clasp should have been easy to find. After they were embarassed by a TV station showing a photo that demonstrated how a bloody footprint at the murder scene did not belong to Raffaele, they rushed back to the murder scene 47 days later and “found” the clasp in a different location from where it was originally. They they “found” DNA from Raffaele in it but stored it in water and now it is rusted and cannot be retested. The DNA was a very low amount and likely due to contamination.

p 48: “Police also noted the evidence of recent sexual contact… but no blood or internal tears to suggest rape—thus the theory of a sex game was formed. Multiple autopsies would later fail to prove sexual assault, while at least one autopsy suggested that the sexual assault took place post mortem.”

The DNA of Rudy was found inside the victim, proving that he had sex with Meredith. Since she did not know Rudy well and already had a boyfriend it is extremely improbable that she had consensual sex. Rudy had recently broken into a house after throwing a rock through a second floor window. He knew that most people went home for the holiday and the flat was likely empty. The most probable explanation is that he broke in, Meredith came home, and then he stabbed her and then raped her.

p 50: “Although most of the fingerprints and DNA in the room would later be matched to Rudy, there were fourteen fingerprints and DNA traces that could not be identified, because they were too smeared or degraded.”

These were probably smeared fingerprints of Rudy. All fingerprints in the room were matched to Rudy and no one else.

p 53: “…broken glass lay on top of the clothes, not under them, which suggested the window was broken after the room was tossed”

Examination of the police photos show no evidence of glass on top of clothes. There is no evidence the room was “tossed”, it is obvious that there were just some clothes on the floor. There was glass all the way across the room and in the murder victim’s room. There was glass embedded in an inside shutter. This could only have been caused by a rock thrown from the outside, not from the inside as the police theorized.

p 53 “there were a woman’s bare footprints [shown with Luminol] Amanda’s size, outside Meredith’s room. These prints would be positively matched to
Amanda, but in a serious procedural oversight they were never tested to show conclusively that they were made in Amanda’s blood.”

Actually they were tested for blood and the test came back negative. The police lied in the initial hearing about this fact.

p 54: “The luminol also revealed more blood in the bathroom and a stray drop in Filomena’s room where the break in occured. That drop would prove the most incriminating; it had Amanda’s DNA mixed with Meredith’s blood.”

It is normal for DNA to be present in the house where they both lived. Since Rudy had washed in the sink he spread Meredith’s blood in the sink.

p 54 “When Raffaele was arrested police searched his apartment and found a receipt for bleach purchased the morning of November 4. This was probably used to clean his shoes and maybe even the knife. The clerk at a different store would later testify that he saw Amanda in the cleaning supplies section shortly after he opened November 2.”

This “receipt for bleach” story is one of many lies leaked to the press. There never was any receipt. The store owner was payed by a tabloid for his “story” months after the event and after there had been a lot of publicity. Another employee said she never saw Amanda in the store. Amanda says she was in bed at that time. There was no evidence of a cleanup on luminol testing so this “story” is irrelevant in any case. In fact the final judicial report has no discussion of this bleach “story”.

p 115 “[Rudy] was not strong enough to kill Meredith with two knives…”

The author assumes that a knife from Raffaele’s apartment pulled out of the drawer as one of many knives based on “police intuition” because it looked “clean” was the murder weapon. In fact there was no blood or evidence of bleach on the knife and the DNA found on it was “low count number” and was so low the test cannot be replicated. This will likely be thrown out as evidence. A bloody imprint of a knife at the scene does not match this knife. Some of the wounds could not be made with this knife which lead to the bizarre multiple knife wielding attackers theory. There is no evidence that this is the murder weapon. The real murder weapon has been lost.

P 116 “Antonio Curatolo was lucid and convincing during his description of the area in the vicinity of the crime.”

Curatolo’s testimony is unreliable. His testimony was used to “fit” a time of death of 11:30 pm which is impossible since Meredith ate at 6-6:30 pm and there were no stomach contents in the duodenum at the time of death. The stomach starts to empties 2-4 hours after a meal so the fact that there was NOTHING in the duodenum puts the time of death at 9-9:30 (she returned home shortly before 9) making a time of death of 11:30 pm impossible.

p 131 “Patrizia Stefanoni testified that the knife showed traces of bleach.”

No traces of bleach were found on the knife.

p 132 “There wasn’t enough DNA to do a control test.”

Leaks from an ongoing independent exam show that there was not enough DNA on the knife to perform a test. The scientific community is generally in agreement that if there is not enough DNA to do a control test that it should not be used as proof. There was no blood on the knife or evidence of a clean up. The knife did not fit most of the wounds. Evidence of bruising around the wounds shows that a smaller knife was jammed in to the hilt. This was not the murder weapon.

In conclusion there is not adequate proof that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito killed Meredith Kercher. The “facts produced by prosecutor Mignini are nothing more than stories.

You can read this in Italian here. Read other rebuttals to this boook here.

Related Posts:

Amanda Knox Convicted on the Basis of Cartwheels and Kisses

Amanda Knox and the Coercive Interrogation Tactics of the Perugia Police that led to a False “Confession”

My Thoughts on the Amanda Knox Case

More Tabloid Trash Coming Out of the UK on the Amanda Knox Case

My Rebuttal to “Angel Face” the Book about Amanda Knox

Forget Everything You Ever Knew About the Amanda Knox Case

Does Italy Have Freedom of Speech? Perugia Blocks Blogger Critical of Amanda Knox Prosecutor Mignini

Murder Abroad: Drew Griffin Reports on the Amanda Knox Case in CNN Video