How did the police just "know" Amanda Knox was guilty, a few days after the murder?

[pnwmom]

Before any results of fingerprints, footprints, DNA, hair or other physical evidence came in?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20000577-504083.html?tag=mncol;lst;1


Giobbi told 48 Hours he was proud that Knox and Sollecito were arrested before fingerprints, blood, footprints, or DNA were analyzed by his office. Instead, Giobbi explained, the case was solved simply by observing Amanda Knox's behavior.

SNIP

The first "suspicious" Knox incident took place at the crime scene. Giobbi told Knox that he was going to the house next door to talk with people there and ask if anyone witnessed anything unusual the night of the murder. Immediately after hearing that, Amanda Knox broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. Giobbi thought Knox's reaction was troubling because there are no houses next door to the crime scene. So why was she so emotional? Giobbi believes it was because Knox had a guilty conscious.

The second incident happened when Giobbi asked Knox to follow him into the apartment below the crime scene. Both Giobbi and Knox had to put protective covers over their shoes before entering. Knox got hers on first, and then showed off that fact by performing a hula-hoop motion with her hands on her hips and bragging about how she quick she'd been. To Giobbi, Knox's inappropriate, girlish behavior wasn't a sign of immaturity, but rather a peek inside the craven heart of a killer.

The third incident, according to Giobbi, was the most disturbing. It occurred when the police picked up Rafaele Sollecito for questioning, three days after Kercher's body was discovered. Police located Sollecito at a cafe. It was three in the afternoon and Sollecito was eating a pizza. But Sollecito wasn't alone. Amanda Knox was also sharing the pizza. This so-called "meeting" helped convince Giobbi the couple had acted together in the murder.

"Knox and Sollecito never had a chance," says Paul Ciolino, a CBS News consultant and Chicago private investigator. Ciolino was at the 48 Hours meeting with Giobbi in 2008, and says, "If I had not been there, hearing this for myself, I would have never believed Giobbi would actually believe that eating a pizza was probable cause in a murder case."

[louis-t]

1. "guilty conscious"?

:shrug:

[pnwmom]

5. Maybe that's what they have in Perugia?

;)

[WinkyDink]

2. Years of criminal investigations under their collective belt? P.S. Police aren't jurors.

[Kalidurga]

3. The police sound a wee bit insane

or perhaps they suffer from some other mental defect.

[pnwmom]

4. No, but in Perugia they might be more important than jurors.

Since they're closely tied to the prosecutor, Mignini, who was tied to both the police lab and the original judge.

A nice little club, and no one wanted to contradict anyone else.

Also, when the police decide on guilt before any evidence comes in, and selectively go through the crime scene looking for evidence to support their preconceptions, that isn't likely to result in a fair presentation of evidence to the jury.

[Union Scribe]

8. If that's investigating, I fear for the other people they've "known" were guilty.

[PSPS]

6. Her repeated lying probably had something to do with it.

[pnwmom]

9. They "knew" she was guilty before they talked to her at all.

Amanda spent 5 days being interrogated by police -- without an attorney, in a foreign language -- who decided she was guilty before they even officially interviewed her. It's hardly surprising that some of her statements were inconsistent. Do you have ANY idea what tactics police routinely use on "suspects" who they interrogate without lawyers present?

[PSPS]

13. That's not what I've heard.

A foreign language to you, perhaps. She says herself (as well as her fans) that she's fluent in Italian. As for her lying, why would she immediately finger someone (she claimed to be an "eye witness") who wasn't there at all? Innocent people don't make up stories, especially in a murder investigation.

I'll leave the judgement to a jury that viewed the evidence, thank you.

[pnwmom]

15. You've heard WRONG. She had had a single class in Italian

before she arrived there. Now, after 4 years, she IS fluent. But she barely spoke Italian when she arrived. Would you be capable of handling a police murder investigation conducted in another language with no attorney present if you had only had a single college class in that language?

Innocent people frequently crack under police questioning -- particularly when they're kept awake overnight and given no food or water while they're being tag-teamed by a dozen police officers, one of whom is cuffing the suspect on the back of the head. Much of the evidence is publicly available. I've read the statements she signed, have you? They aren't confessions and they're not really accusations, either, containing virtually no details. And a few hours after she broke down and signed the second statement, saying she could "vaguely remember" being in the cottage while the bar owner was there (after the police insisted they KNEW that she had been there with the bar owner), she sent a note saying that she didn't think the memory was real, that she thought her initial memory was real -- that she had been with her boyfriend in his apartment at the time.

Here are translations of two of the statements she signed. There is a third one in which she changes her mind about the second one (saying the memory doesn't feel real), but I can't remember where I saw it.

(The bar owner Patrick, who is justifiably angry with Amanda, has described being abused by the police himself, in their interrogation of him. So he has indirectly confirmed Amanda's description of being hit by the police during her interrogation.)

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6897448&postcount=166

From the first:

"I met Patrick soon after at the basketball court of Piazza Grimana and we went home. I do not remember if Meredith was already there or if she came later. I find it difficult to remember those moments but Patrick had sex with Meredith with whom he was infatuated but I do not remember well if Meredith had been threatened before. I vaguely remember that he killed her." (Other translations say: "I confusedly remember that he killed her."

From the second: (after the police have convinced her that they KNOW that Patrick is the murderer)

"I wish to relate spontaneously what happened because these events have deeply bothered me and I am really afraid of Patrick, the African boy who owns the pub called “Le Chic” located in Via Alessi where I work periodically. I met him in the evening of November 1st 2007, after sending him a reply message saying “I will see you”. We met soon after at about 21.00 at the basketball court of Piazza Grimana. We went to my apartment in Via della Pergola n. 7. I do not clearly remember if Meredith was already at home or if she came later, what I can say is that Patrick and Meredith went into Meredith’s room, while I think I stayed in the kitchen. I cannot remember how long they stayed together in the room but I can only say that at a certain point I heard Meredith screaming and as I was scared I plugged up my hears. Then I do not remember anything, I am very confused. I do not remember if Meredith was screaming and if I heard some thuds too because I was upset, but I imagined what could have happened.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have met Patrick this morning, in front of the Università Per Stranieri and he has asked me some questions, to be more accurate he wanted to know what the Policemen had asked me. I think he has also asked me if I wanted to see some journalists, maybe in order to know if I knew anything about Meredith’s death.- I am not sure if Raffaele was there as well that night but I clearly remember that I woke up at my boyfriend’s home, in his bed and that I came back home in the morning when I found the door of the apartment open. When I woke up in the morning of November 2nd I was in bed with my boyfriend.------------------------------------
It is acknowledged that KNOX repeatedly brings her hands on her head and shakes it.-

[Anto Giampietro]

16. Hello from Sestri Ponente, Italy.

Guilty or not she speaks perfect Italian.

[Rhiannon12866]

17. Welcome to DU, Anto Giampietro!

It's great to have you with us! :hi:

[pnwmom]

18. Hello, Anto. The issue isn't how well she speaks Italian TODAY.

She's been in Italy for four years now. The issue is how well she understood it four years ago, when she had had only a single college class in the language -- and when she was subjected to several days of police interrogation without an attorney or a neutral (non police) translator.

[saras]

10. Do you have access to secret evidence that no one else does?

[pnwmom]

11. LOL.

Lots of the "guilters" do.

[PSPS]

12. "Guilters?" Does that makes you a "Foxy Knoxy-er?"

[pnwmom]

14. Based on extensive reading of source documents (not tabloids), it makes me wonder how any logical

person cannot see that there is enough reasonable doubt in this case to fly a 747 through.

There are MANY similarities between this case and the Duke lacrosse students case -- same kind of grandstanding prosecutor, same withheld raw DNA files, same resentment of "privileged" college students, same media campaign against them.

[elias7]

19. I want to thank you...

for your informed, rational and lengthy responses to many folks in many threads that have bought into the simplified media reports and assumed guilt. I finally decided to do my own research and find no basis for a trial let alone a conviction. I was one who decided she was a cold-hearted bitch and sociopath and felt comfortable in her supposed guilt. Certainly my incomplete knowledge was fed by my own prejudices and experiences, and I think that is what must be driving the thought processes of anyone who maintains her guilt.

I think people have failed to process a few facts:
1)she barely spoke Italian at the time (and Sollecito barely spoke English).
2)she had been living with Kercher for all of 3 weeks
3)she had been with Sollecito all of two weeks
4)the crime scene was not cleaned, all evidence pointed to Guede, none to Knox or Sollecito
5)the Massei report has been thoroughly discredited regarding DNA evidence

Again, thanks for your cool-headedness and perseverence in this case. It was your posts that spurred me into rethinking the case and getting more informed.

[AngkorWot]

7. Reason, experience, and rational thought.

They probably weren't DUers.