We've recently been talking about the importance of the prosecution turning over the negative controls from DNA tests. But also of importance are the raw data files from the DNA machines themselves, something that Patrizia Stefanoni refused to hand over.

In the "Garlasco Case" now gripping the Italian imagination, the raw data files from the Carabinieri DNA tests were finally made available to the prosecutor's office in Pavia after nearly two decades. While the Carabineri had claimed to have performed only one test, one that revealed the DNA of the victim, Chiara Poggi, the raw files reveal that two additional tests were actually performed, both of which came back negative. The "elite" Carabinieri had lied in claiming only one test and then hid the exculpatory results.

https://www.notizie.it/en/New-forensic-raw-data-evidence-disproves-DNA-on-Garlasco%27s-pedals/

1. Recall how the knife sample had been labeled exhibit 36 bis, with 'bis' being an Italian musical term meaning repeat or do-over? Yet Stefanoni testified only one test had been performed. Kinda makes you wonder huh?

2. I've been told that DNA results are as plain as the nose on your face, so how did one test come back a whopping good match and the other two "completely negative" ( at least according to a newspaper report ).

https://milano.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/26_settembre_29/garlasco-pedali-bici-stasi-test-083c3701-01e3-4d37-b95d-0a2737e04xlk_amp.shtml

1. Remember how the prosecution in the Kercher murder constantly harped that the DNA testing was all performed in the presence of defense expert witnesses who raised no objection? Well records reveal that these two negative tests from the Poggi investigation were conducted in secret with no one from the defense present. So much for oversight.

And oh look, guess who was in charge of the Carabinieri DNA laboratory at the time, but none other than Luciano Garofano who ran his mouth big time in the book "Darkness Descending" about all the "evidence" implicating Knox. Garofano is often lauded by creepy guilter trolls like HarryRag as being one of Italy's "top DNA experts", despite the fact that Garofano has only a bachelor's degree in forensic toxicology. Since retirement Garofano has been filling his time as a defense consultant for Andrea Sempio, who is about to go on trial for being the actual murderer of Chiara Poggi as opposed to the poor sap Alberto Stasi who's been rotting in prison for the last 14 years despite two previous trials where he was found innocent.

https://milano.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/26_settembre_28/luciano-garofano-chi-e-l-ex-generale-dei-carabinieri-da-simbolo-dell-investigatore-scientifico-a-super-consulente-delle-difese-2ba2f914-64a1-4483-9c0d-c74464bb8xlk.shtml?refresh_ce

No doubt guilters will complain that this is a separate case which involves a separate police force and they'll have a valid point. But Stefanoni's refusal to turn over the raw data files for a sample that is labeled 'bis' looks a lot more sinister in light of these recent revelations from the world of Italian law enforcement. A world that keeps looking dirtier and dirtier as time goes by.

I've posted a couple of links here regarding the recent use of Luminol in the Jesse Baird and Luke Davies murders in early 2024. The YouTube video give a fairly good description of what can be expected of Luminol at a crime scene. Most of it is more or less, what we know already but it's an interesting insight into how Luminol is used as a presumptive test with other confirmatory steps following to establish whether there is blood or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1LRMDGD5IE

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/30/crime-scene-photos-released-in-beau-lamarre-condon-double-murder-trial-ntwnfb

So, it is known that he was inside and took a dump.

It is also known that he had done such a thing before (breaking and entering and apparently, sleeping on the place).

Now, assuming that he did break and enter in this case, where does he get the idea that he is safe and that no one will come during the night?

How did he feel so comfortable to the point of taking a dump?

Could someone have provided him with the information that no one would be there? If so, who?

If he, on purpose, did want to hide and catch one of the girls by surprise, why take a shit then?

Any old-timers out there? Remember those puzzle books your parents would give you to keep you occupied on long car trips? Jumbles where you'd draw pencil lines around all the words you could find in a large matrix of letters?

Well let's engage in nostalgia and see just how many flat-out lies and distortions can be found in this story written by a "reputable" journalist in a "quality" British newspaper, The Sunday Times.

https://www.thetimes.com/best-law-firms/profile-legal/article/is-this-the-face-of-a-killer-sbw3rd28n5k?eafs_enabled=false

( I've been informed that folks are getting paywalled. Please try this archive and/or try this link which has everything past the question mark removed. My apologies for any frustration users have experienced trying to open these links. I'm at a loss as to why I'm not getting paywalled.

https://archive.is/HtUjD

https://www.thetimes.com/best-law-firms/profile-legal/article/is-this-the-face-of-a-killer-sbw3rd28n5k

)

Now to be fair, if you want you can claim that this reporter was being lead around by the nose like a cub on his very first assignment, then fine. But that just raises a darker question.

If Knox and Sollecito were so obviously guilty from examining the evidence, then why were the cops and prosecution lying so damn much?

And wasn't just this scenario what prompted the Knox family's Italian lawyers to recommend hiring a media firm like Gogarty-Marriott and not some nefarious attempt to paint a narrative or muddy the waters?

To paraphrase Captain Willard "The BS piled up so fast in Perugia, you needed wings to stay above it."

I really do want to apologize, as it's not my intention to carpet bomb this subreddit, but just now a guilter repeated one of the most vile, disgusting and thoroughly debunked smears against Knox, namely that she wrote r@pe fantasy stories.

For a creative writing class, students were assigned to write a story about characters struggling with conscience. In Knox's story an older brother, Edgar, attempts to prick the conscience of his younger brother, Kyle, for drugging and then SA'ing a girl at a party. A fistfight erupts between the two brothers.

“Edgar dropped to the floor and tasted the blood in his mouth and swallowed it. He couldn’t move his jaw and it felt like someone was jabbing a razor into the left side of his face.”

For those who find Knox's choice of subject matter sinister, I would remind people that behavior, or accusations of that type of behavior (drugging) was a major topic of discussion on American college campuses in the mid-2000s

"Journalist" John Follain however completely altered the story by "quoting" it as follows in the The Sunday Times , June 15, 2008

The graphic way Knox describes Kercher's bloody chin echoes a story she wrote as part of a creative writing course about one woman raping another which included the passage: "She fell on the floor, she felt the blood on her mouth and swallowed it. She couldn't move her jaw and felt as if someone was moving a razor on the left side of her face."

https://www.thetimes.com/article/knox-e-mail-tells-of-merediths-vampire-blood-pjh7bjhzskj

I simply cannot see how anyone can believe that this is an honest mistake. How does one "accidentally" replace "Edgar" with "she" and also change all the pronouns and, most significantly, change the gender of the assailant???

It's obvious that this was a smear intending to show that Knox was some kind of dangerous deviant with a penchant for r@pe porn and it's been successful as it is oft-repeated among guilters.

This is the level of utterly depraved dishonesty in the press that was leveled at Knox and Sollecito in the early days of their ordeal.

Everyone likes to quote Thomas Jefferson on the subject of newspapers. But allow me to end with another lesser-known Jefferson quote from the later part of his political career.

“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”

Edit: I figured this would just be a quick post since I wanted to squash this particular creepy smear. I really didn't expect to see guilters defending this dishonesty and yet there they are in the comments. One is saying that gender swapping the assailant and victim was just an attempt at achieving gender equity. Like what??? Another guilter says that Follain just "didn't have the time to check his sources". THAT'S HIS DAMN JOB! That's like saying the guy making your sandwich just "didn't have time" to wash his hands after using the restroom but so what? What's the big deal about that?

Guilters aren't as bad as you thought. They're worse than you can possibly imagine.

Amanda’s doing her standup in NYC and I want to ser the show! Hard to get friends out at 8:30 on. Thursday in midtown though. Lemme know if youre also not a fan of going to things alone!

Apologies for another post in quick succession. I should have done a more comprehensive search initially and combined them all in one post.

Analyst at FBI Laboratory failed to perform negative control checks for two years:

https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/special/0405/final.pdf

"The Danger of DNA: It isn't perfect":

https://web.archive.org/web/20260315212100/https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-dna26-2008dec26-story.html

Forgive me but given the sloppiness of the Italian police in this case ( failing to weigh the victim, confusing cell tower antennas, pathological inability to follow procedures when taking samples etc ... ) I find the idea that somehow Stefanoni's lab in Rome was a world class standout in anti-contamination procedures to be ludicrous.

Just a quick followup to AlanOfTheCult's post from a few weeks ago.

In September, Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) analyst Yvonne "Missy" Woods was sentenced to 10 years in prison in part for deleting data from negative control tests.

One particularly telling point is on page 63 of the CBI report when a CBI employee said that,

'[REDACTED] said she wasn't sure why Woods would delete data, because contamination is very common and there are methods to deal with it'.

Now compare this with Patrizia Stefanoni who bellowed that her lab had never ever a single instance of contamination. Never!

I don't believe Stefanoni. She's just not credible.

Unfortunately the only copy of the report I can find right now is hosted on Amazon Web Services and it appears to be from the Colorado Sun newspaper but malware scanning the hell out of it might not be a bad idea.

https://newspack-coloradosun.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IIA-23-05-CBI-IACase-Report-Woods_Redacted.pdf

Post

Amanda Knox on X: "15 years ago today, I stared out of an airplane window in shock at the sight of my city, Seattle. I hadn't slept in 48 hours. It looked unreal, like a model train diorama. When the airplane door opened, I was struck by the smell of trees and rain after four years trapped in a concrete box. /thread"

• Amanda Knoxu/amandaknox 15 years ago today, I stared out of an airplane window in shock at the sight of my city, Seattle. I hadn't slept in 48 hours. It looked unreal, like a model train diorama. When the airplane door opened, I was struck by the smell of trees and rain after four years trapped in a concrete box.

Just pondering this as I read Follain this morning…

Guede’s total failure to ever produce anything like a credible version of events is a major flaw in a case against Knox and Sollecito. He MUST know, yet has played both sides with each telling more rambling and incomprehensible than the last.

Only Kokomani appears to make less sense than this man.

So let me get this straight. The Kercher family and or disgruntled people in the UK get a veto on anything Amanda Knox does from here on out? That's how it works in a free society?

So it is being argued that there is nothing scientifically inaccurate about Stefanoni including an astonishing 23 out of 29 peaks lower than 50 RFU in her "identification" of Meredith Kercher's DNA on the infamous kitchen knife. Such limits are meaningless since ackshually they are set by lawyers working for the DNA equipment manufacturers. Apparently the FBI and the Carabinieri did not have very good lawyers at the time since their minimum limits were 150 RFU.

But just a moment of thought should reveal how specious this argument is. DNA is not just used for forensics, but also for medical and scientific purposes. A researcher claiming to find interbreeding between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons in the DNA record has to make a scientific case, not withstand a legal challenge from the Neanderthal's legal counsel.

In any event, a few moments with a search engine reveals all the scientific work regarding the setting of DNA thresholds.

https://www.thermofisher.com/blog/behindthebench/str-analysis-using-thresholds-forensic-focus-5/

https://nij.ojp.gov/nij-hosted-online-training-courses/str-data-analysis-and-interpretation-forensic-analysts/data-troubleshooting/thresholds

Sometimes I think that perhaps this subreddit should be renamed the "International Subreddit of Fatuous Arguments"

I'll admit this is a low effort post but for those of us with the misfortune to have argued this case over the years, spraying coffee etc ... all over your phone or monitor is an understandable response.

For those lucky enough not to have dealt with the Hairy Rag, it has been stating flatly for over a decade that Luminol hits at Villa Della Pergola *HAVE* to be assumed to be blood. What else could it be?

Except that is when a countryman is in the dock. Then the "science" changes dramatically and Luminol hits in the McCann's hotel room absolutely need additional confirmatory tests.

( For the record, I have absolutely no knowledge and therefore no informed opinion on the McCann case. I merely mention it to demonstrate the hypocrisy of one of the most prominent Knox guilters ).

strictly off not liking her presence in the true crime space alone that's what people think!

Today I read something I hadn't seen before in this case. And it's about the Negative Control Tests for the knife.

Apparently Stefanoni straight up refused to provide these when the court requested them.

Can anyone help me confirm if this is true?

Because if this is the case then that is just staggering.

For those unaware: these are blank samples that should be tested alongside the item you want to test - as this helps to identify possible contamination in the equipment.
Considering the level that they were amplifying the samples from the knife one would expect this data to be readily available to the forensics team.

If the Negative Controls were not readily available alone should have been enough to disqualify the DNA result in this case.

At best it would mean they didn't perform the tests: which would be incompetence.
At worst it would mean they did the tests and deliberately suppressed the results: which would be a deliberate misrepresentation of evidence.

If this is indeed the case, I am finding it difficult to come to a conclusion that these weren't mere errors - but deliberate decisions made to misrepresent the evidence that was available to the prosecution.

There's just too many examples.

1. "forgetting" that they had negative TMB tests on the footprints.
2. Claiming zero contamination despite the bra clasp showing clear signs of contamination, and multiple DNA profiles they deemed irrelevant.
3. Lost CCTV footage
4. Destroyed Hard Drives
5. Missing Negative Control Tests
6. Allowing the Bra Clasp to be rendered useless for further examination.
7. etc. etc.

What I find amazing is how many instances the Italian authorities tried to make Amanda speak in Italian with no translator. How was this not a huge violation of her rights?

For such a "grifter", Knox seems to have a penchant for speaking out in ways that alienate some of her supporters. Other examples were her public reversal on Jens Söring and stating that Kyle Rittenhouse, like everyone should be, tried in court and not in the press.

But of course the colpevolisti will turn themselves into pretzels explaining how this is all part of Knox's underwater, upside down six dimensional chess strategy, when of course the real money in this world is going full Alex Jones or Candace Owens.

Will it ever spark a moment of doubt in the minds of guilters to be compared to the harassers of Patrick Clancy?

Unfortunately not likely.

The complaint will be that Knox is attempting to remain in the news while ignoring the fact that Knox literally went to university for a career in writing and this is exactly what she's doing now. Writing. Just like Sollecito went to school for computer engineering and is now working as a software engineer.

And I just can't wait for the inevitable conspiracy theories linking Knox and Clancy in some kind of worldwide Satanic plot.

There has never been a single piece of evidence, footage, etc. linking this woman to a brutal crime. She had quite literally zero motive to commit the crime, the only evidence is a different mans fingerprint who was robbing places left and right before this.

Also, do you guilty mfers actually think this girl scaled a 13 ft wall like spider man, smashed a window where she could have just walked in, and killed someone for literally no reason but some other dude literally shit in their toilet and left bloody fingerprints.

I know we live in a world of mental gymnastics and people wanting to argue just for arguments sake, but give it a rest ffs. The best motive presented was she was a sex freak who walked in and killed someone because there was shit in the toilet? Can you people be fr?

Here’s what I thought to be an interesting tidbit I came across the other day when going over the transcript of the November 10, 2007 police intercept of Edda’s visit to see Amanda in prison. Found on page 16, Edda Mellas (Amanda's mother) speaking :

 “M): Well, and they wanted… the lawyers wanted me to ask you why you had changed your story and now I’ll know.” (my emphasis)

This sounds like malpractice to me…or else Edda is lying...which is it do you think?

Are we to believe that the lawyers actually wanted Edda to discuss the case with Amanda during her prison visit with her knowing full well that everything said would be recorded? And that they have recruited her, so to speak, to get some information for them? By the way, Ms. Mellas, since you're visiting Amanda in prison tomorrow would you be a dear and ask her why she changed her alibi?

I'm not sure I can believe that. The lawyers would have certainly known that everything said during a prison visit was recorded and could be used by the prosecutor against them in a court of law.

Not only would it have been incumbent upon the attorneys to warn Edda not to broach any subject with Amanda having to do with the case but, certainly, not to go out of her way and ask Amanda -- on their behalf or otherwise -- for a particular piece of information about the case. Which is exactly what Edda is claiming.

This would be the pinnacle of attorney incompetence, wouldn't you agree? Not sure what the rules are in Italy but certainly in many jurisdictions such behaviour would be grounds for sanctions, penalties, and perhaps even disbarment.

So, I don't think this is the case. I suspect Edda is, simply, lying; she is dying to know why Amanda changed her story and it is she, Edda, who wants to know, not the lawyers. So she is cloaking her question in such a way as to absolve her -- in Amanda's eyes -- of any indication that she is not believing her daughter. And her desire to get at the truth is so strong that she is not only willing to lie to get at the truth but to actually risk her daughter's case.

This all comes across as Edda' basically saying to us: this is not my first rodeo with a daughter whose credibility has been sorely tested on previous occasions in our mother-daughter relationship back in Seattle. And, quite frankly, I need to know whether Amanda did in fact murder that poor girl. Because past experience tells me that Amanda is quite capable of lying.

EDIT: I wrote "2026" instead of "2007." Corrected.

Would love to know their reflections on it all.

Do they have regrets?
Do they think they got the right person?
Do they wish they had done things differently?
Do they think Knox is innocent or guilty?
Do they think they got tunnel vision?
How would they assess the quality of their own investigation?
Are there any other leads they wish they had pursued?
What do they think about Knox’s accusations of brutality?

Not an expression I was familiar with until falling into the rabbit hole around this case, but one that - as soon as I heard it - described perfectly how I felt in reading so many of Knox’s missives around this whole affair.

So the definition -

Tailoring evidence means a witness or an accused person adapts, changes, or fabricates their testimony to match (or even preempt) facts presented by (or likely to be presented by) the prosecution.

The examples of this across this case are so numerous, so telegraphed, and so painfully obvious that I have begun to wonder if her defenders must adopt a kind of wilful naivety to give this stuff a pass…

Sadly, personally I am unable to suspend disbelief to this extent!

Bear in mind that the below are often from proactive, unsolicited statements from the accused. She brings this material up spontaneously, and sometimes with totally incongruent levels of detail, hence the natural raising of alarm level!

In no particular order:

The infected ear that may be bleeding (ya know, just a passing detail in an email to friends #1 ) - “if you find any of my blood around the scene, here’s why”

The leaky sink + the mop (ya know, just a passing detail in an email to friends #2) - “there was good reason for a cleaning operation. If I am seen moving a mop around near a crime scene, this is why.”

The bathroom mat sashay / the “magic carpet” - “if you find smears or swirls on the floor, here is why”.

The clothes in the bag (ya know, just a passing detail in an email to friends #3) - “if I am seen in transit the day after a murder carrying a bag full of dirty clothes between a crime scene and my co-accused’s apartment, here’s why”

The story of her and Raf passing time by cleaning each other, with special mention of ears “for a long time” - “if it looks like there were excessive cleaning measures going on, here’s why. (Also doubles as a tragicomic psychological “tell” that does not require Freud to decode)

The presumed fish blood on Raf’s hand - “if you do manage to skewer Raf for the crime, I was unaware, but - now you mention it - as I look back on it he might have been up to no good actually”

Absurd hedgebetting long after the reportedly coerced confession “I stand by my statements I made about events that could have happened at my house with Patrick, but want to make it clear that these seem more unreal than what I said before” + “the best truth I have been able to think” - Shrodingers Knox, “basically let me know what you know and I can figure it out, but for now I would like to keep all realities in multiversal co-existence. Thanks”

And then bonus material to trump it all courtesy of Sollecito. “Oh yeah I remember now I pricked Meredith with the knife while cooking”- and that’s why her DNA is on it!!

Pretty sure I missed some too…You honestly couldn’t make this stuff up…

well you could, evidently…

Since we are going to back to revisit the hits like Barbie Nadeau figured I would have to bring up Atlan. Yes, one of the prime Knox guilters used to believe he was a shaman from another planet.

This case definitely has attracted some of the most looney tune people ever, all convinced of a persons guilt to the highest degree that I have ever seen. Winners like KrissyEyes, Peter Quennell and the whole TJMK mental health abyss and of course Miss Represented.

What I have never understood is what attracted them to this case and this person and to the levels of hate they reached - why did the Knox case attract so many truly bizarre people convinced that Knox was a homicidal maniac/ghoul/sex crime gang leader?

And as the story fell apart and the truth about the police and prosecution came out, what caused so many of these “guilters” to dig in, become more virulent and unhinged, to the point where they started listening to someone we won’t name who literally said they were a messiah from another planet? Has any other case attracted such a fringe element of weirdos and clowns ?

I have often heard people here talk about Guede scrubbing Meredith’s blood off himself at some point in the bathroom at Via Pergola.

So how come his DNA noticeably isn’t there and Knox’s is?

And how come Knox’s DNA is mixed with Meredith’s blood in three separate bathroom locations (I think), and - before anybody says “it’s because she was living there” - it’s striking that it’s only hers, not the other flatmates’…this surely makes it a more compelling pattern?

One immediate response to this, of course, is “absence of evidence isn’t the same as evidence of absence.” DNA can be a curious, mercurial mistress…And I buy this, provided the same standard is applied elsewhere!

Speed inhaling the Barbie Nadeau book much to everybody’s evident irritation.

Got to a fascinating broadside about Anne Bremner and an informal lobby group called “friends of Amanda Knox.”

What became of that?

Reading Barbie and Andrea Vogt’s perspective - think they were dubbed “void” and “no clue” or some such (?!) - certainly raises eyebrows of the proverbial variety…