The Oregon Innocence Project had its launch party last night. It was a full house with a lot of excitement and energy. Here is an article about the event. Good luck to the Oregon Innocence Project!
Blog Editor
Mark Godsey
Daniel P. & Judith L. Carmichael Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law; Director, Center for the Global Study of Wrongful Conviction; Director, Rosenthal Institute for Justice/Ohio Innocence ProjectOrder Here
Contributing Editors
Justin Brooks
Professor, California Western School of Law; Director, California Innocence ProjectOrder his book Wrongful Convictions Cases & Materials 2d ed. hereCheah Wui Ling
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of SingaporeDaniel Ehighalua
Nigerian BarristerJessica S. Henry
Associate Professor of Justice Studies, Montclair UniversityCarey D. Hoffman
Director of Digital Communications, Ohio Innocence Project@OIPCommunicati1Shiyuan Huang
Associate Professor, Shandong University Law School; Visiting Scholar, University of Cincinnati College of LawC Ronald Huff
Professor of Criminology, Law & Society and Sociology, University of California-IrvinePhil Locke
Science and Technology Advisor, Ohio Innocence Project and Duke Law Wrongful Convictions ClinicDr. Carole McCartney
Reader in Law, Faculty of Business and Law, Northumbria UniversityNancy Petro
Author and Advocate Order her book False Justice hereKana Sasakura
Professor, Faculty of Law, Konan University Innocence Project JapanDr. Robert Schehr
Professor, Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Northern Arizona University; Executive Director, Arizona Innocence ProjectUlf Stridbeck
Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, NorwayMartin Yant
Author and Private Investigator Order his book Presumed Guilty here
Excellent!
Amanda, Your presence at the event will make it one to remember. You will meet wonderful supportive people. Have fun!
Congratulations, to Oregon for helping to grow the innocence movement! Expanding in Washington DC, attend INNOCENCE SUMMIT, first conference, June 20-21st. Center for Prosecutor Integrity http://www.prosecutorintegrity.org
Congrats Oregon, and great to see such a BIG smile on Amanda.
Amanda Knox is going to need the innocence project to intervene. The only problem is that she is guilty and the project will be a laughingstock.
AMANDA KNOX’S EMAIL TO FAMILY AND FRIENDS. : READ THE INCONSISTENCIES AND LIES. SHE HERSELF IS TELLING YOU SHE IS GUILTY IN THIS EMAIL
This is an email for everyone, because id like to get it all out and
not have to repeat myself a hundred times like ive been having to do
at the police station. some of you already know some things, some of
you know nothing. what im about to say i cant say to journalists or
newspapers, and i require that of anone receiving this information as
well. this is m account of how i found my roommate murdered the
morning of friday, november 2nd.
The last time i saw meredith, 22, english, beautiful, funny, was when
i came home from spending the night at a friends house. It was the day
after halloween, thursday. I got home and she was still asleep, bu
after i had taken a shower and was fumbling around the kitchen she
emerged from her room with the blood of her costume (vampire) still
dripping down her chin.
THIS IS A LIE, IN THE PHOTOS OF HALLOWEEN NIGHT, SHE HAD NO BLOOD DRIPPING DOWN HER CHIN. IN ONE PHOTO THE VAMPIRE BLOOD HAD WORN OFF
We talked for a while in the kitchen, how the
night went, what our plans were for the day. Nothing out of the
ordinary. then she went to take a shower and i began to start eating a
little while i waited for my friend (Raffaele-at whose house i stayed
over) to arrive at my house. He came right after i started eating and
he made himself some pasta. as we were eating together meredith came
out of the shower and grabbed some laundry or put some laundry in, one
or the other and returned into her room after saying hi to raffael.
after lunch i began to play guitar with raffael and meredith came out
of her room and went to the door. she said bye and left for the day.
it was the last time i saw her alive.
after a little while of playing guitar me and raffael went to his
house to watch movies and after to eat dinner and generally spend the
evening and night indoors. we didnt go out. the next morning i woke up
around 1030 and after grabbing my few things i left raffael’s
appartment and walked the five minute walk back to my house to once
again take a shower
TO ONCE AGAIN TAKE A SHOWER? ? OK
and grab a chane of clothes. i also needed to grab
a mop because after dinner raffael had spilled a lot of water on the
floor of his kitchen by accident and didnt have a mop to clean it up.
SO THE NIGHT BEFORE RAFFAELE SPILLED WATER, THAT SAT ALL NIGHT….WATER SPREADS AND EVAPORATES. BUT OK
so i arrived home and the first abnormal thing i noticed was the door
was wide open. here’s the thingabout the door to our house: its
broken, in such a way that you have to use the keys to keep it closed.
if we dont have the door locked, it is really easy for the wond to
blow the door open, and so, my roommates and i always have the door
locked unless we are running really quickley to bring the garbage out
or to get something from the neighbors who live below us. (another
important piece of imformation: for those who dont know, i inhabit a
house of two stories, of which my three roommates and i share the
second story appartment. there are four italian guys of our age
between 22 and 26 who live below us. we are all wuite good friends and
we talk often. giacomo is especially welcome because he plays guitar
with me and laura, one of my roommates, and is, or was dating
meredith. the other three are marco, stefano, and ricardo.) anyway, so
the door was wide open. strange, yes, but not so strange that i really
thought anything about it. i assumed someone in the house was doing
exactly what i just said, taking out the trash or talking really
uickley to the neighbors downstairs. so i closed the door behind me
but i didnt lock it, assuming that the person who left the door open
would like to come back in. when i entered i called out if anyone was
there, but no one responded and i assumed that if anyone was there,
they were still asleep. lauras door was open which meant she wasnt
home, and filomenas door was also closed. my door was open like always
and meredith door was closed, which to me weant she was sleeping. i
undressed in my room and took a quick shower in one of the two
bathrooms in my house, the one that is right next to meredith and my
bedrooms (situated right next to one another). it was after i stepped
out of the shower and onto the mat that i noticed the blood in the
bathroom. it was on the mat i was using to dry my feet and there were
drops of blood in the sink. at first i thought the blood might have
come from my ears which i had pierced extrensively not too long ago,
but then immediately i know it wasnt mine becaus the stains on the mat
were too big for just droplets form my ear, and when i touched the
blood in the sink it was caked on already. there was also blood
smeered on the faucet. again, however, i thought it was strange,
because my roommates and i are very clean and we wouldnt leave blood
int he bathroom,
YET SHE LEAVES THE BLOOD IN THE SINK AND DOESN’T FLUSH THE TOILET BEFORE LEAVING
but i assumed that perhaps meredith was having
menstral issues and hadnt cleaned up yet. ew, but nothing to worry
about. i left the bathroom and got dressed in my room. after i got
dressed i went to the other bathroom in my house, the one that
filomena dn laura use, and used their hairdryer to obviously dry my
hair and it was after i was putting back the dryer that i noticed the
shit that was left in the toilet, something that definately no one in
out house would do. i started feeling a little uncomfortable and so i
grabbed the mop from out closet and lef the house, closing and locking
the door that no one had come back through while i was in the shower,
and i returned to raffael’s place. after we had used the mop to clean
up the kitchen i told raffael about what i had seen in the house over
breakfast.
SHE ISN’T ALARMED AT THE HOUSE AND DOESN’T TELL RAFFAELE ABOUT WHAT SHE HAD SEEN UNTIL AFTER BREAKFAST AND WHAT EVER WATER DIDN’T EVAPORATE FROM THE NIGHT BEFORE
the strange blood in the bathroom, the door wide open, the
shit left in the toilet. he suggested i call one of my roommates, so i
called filomena. filomena had been at a party the night before with
her boyfriend marco (not the same marco who lives downstairs but we’ll
call him marco-f as in filomena and the other can be marco-n as in
neighbor). she also told me that laura wasnt at home and hadnt been
because she was on business in rome. which meant the only one who had
spent the night at our house last night was meredith,
HERE IS WHERE SHE WILL CONTRADICT REGARDING THE NEIGHBORS DOWNSTAIRS. SHE DIDN’T KNOW THAT EITHER OF HER ROOMMATES WERE NOT HOME THAT NIGHT….O K
and she was as
of yet unaccounted for. filomena seemed really worried, so i told her
id call meredith and then call her back. i called both of merediths
phones the english one first and last and the italian one between. the
first time i called the english phone is rang and then sounded as of
there was disturbance, but no one answered. i then calle the italian
phone and it just kept ringing, no answer. i called her english phone
again and this time an english voice told me her phone was out of
service. raffael and i gathered our things and went back to my house.
i unlocked the door and im going to tell this really slowly to get
everything right so just have patience with me. the living
room/kitchen was fine. looked perfectly normal. i was checking for
signs of our things missing, should there have been a burglar
BURGLAR IN THE HOUSE…..
in our
house the night before. filomenas room was closed, but when i opned
the door her room and a mess and her window was open and completely
broken, but her computer was still sitting on her desk like it always
was and this confused me. convinced that we had been robbed i went to
lauras room and looked quickley in, but it was spottless, like it
hadnt even been touced. this too, i thought was odd. i then went into
the part of the house that meredith and i share and checked my room
for things missing, which there werent. then i knocked on merediths
room.
at first i thought she was alseep so i knocked gently, but when she
didnt respond i knocked louder and louder until i was really banging
on her door and shouting her name. no response. panicing, i ran out
onto our terrace to see if maybe i could see over the ledge into her
room from the window, but i couldnt see in. bad angle. i then went
into the bathroom where i had dried my hair and looked really quickley
into the toilet. in my panic i thought i hadnt seen anything there,
which to me meant whoever was in my house had been there when i had
been there. as it turns out the police told me later that the toilet
was full and that the shit had just fallen to the bottom of the
toilet, so i didnt see it. i ran outside and down to our neighbors
door. the lights were out but i banged ont he door anyway. i wanted to
ask them if they had heard anything the night before,
THE NIGHT BEFORE? HOW DOES SHE KNOW WHEN MEREDITH WAS MURDERED? SHE WAS NOT THERE??
but no one was home.
AT THIS POINT SHE DOESN’T KNOW THAT THEY WERE ON VACATION FOR A WEEK, RIGHT??
i ran back into the house. in the living room raffael told me he
wanted to see if he could break down merediths door. he tried, and
cracked the door, but we couldnt open it. it was then that we decided
to call the cops. there are two types of cops in italy, carbanieri
(local, dealing with traffic and domestic calls) and the police
investigaters. he first called his sister for advice and then called
the carbanieri. i then called filomna who said she would be on her way
home immediately. while we were waiting, two ununiformed police
investigaters came to our house. i showed them what i could and told
them what i knew. gave them ohone numbers and explained a bit in
broken italian, and then filomena arrived with her boyfriend marco-f
and two other friends of hers. all together we checked the houe out,
talked to the polie,a nd in a big they all opened merediths door.
i was in the kitchen stadning aside, having really done my part for
the situation. but when they opened merediths door and i heard
filomena scream “a foot! a foot!” in italian i immedaitely tried to
get to merediths room but raffael grabbed me and took me out of the
house. the police told everyone to get out and not long afterward the
carabinieri arrived and then soon afterward, more police
investigators. they took all of our informaton and asked us the same
questions over and over. at the time i had only what i was wearing and
my badg, which thankfully had my passport in it and my wallet. no
jacket though, and i was freezing. after sticking around at the housr
for a bit, the police told us to go to the station to give testimony,
which i did. i was in a room for six hours straight after that without
seeing anyone else, answering questions in italian for the first hour
and then they brought in an interpreter and he helped my out with the
details that i didnt know the words for. they asked me of course about
the the morning, the last time i saw her, and because i was the
closest to her, questions about her habits and her relationships.
afterward, when they were taking my fingerprints, i met two of
merediths english friends, two girls she goes out with, including the
lat one who saw her alive that night she was murdered. they also had
their prints taken. after that, this was around 9 at night by this
time, i was taken into the waiting room where there was various other
people who i all knew from varous places who all knew meredith. her
friends from england, my roommates, even the owner of the pub she most
frequented. after a while my neighbors were taken in too, having just
arived home from a weeklong vacation in their home town, which
eplained why they werent home when i banged on their door. later than
that another guy showed up and was taken in for questioning, a guy i
dont like but who both meredith and i knew from different occasions, a
morracan guy that i only know by his nickname amongst the girls
“shaky”. then i sat around in this waiting room wthout having the
chance to leave or eat anything besides vending maschine food (whcih
gave me a hell of a stomache ache) until 530 in the morning. during
this time i received calls from a lot of different people, family
mostly of course, and i also talked with the rest. especially to find
out what exactly was in merediths room whent hey opened it. apparently
her body was laying under a sheet, and with her foot sticking out and
there was a lot of blood. whoever had did this had slit her throat.
they told me to be back in at 11am. i went home to raffael’s place and
ate something substantial, and passed out.
in the morning raffael drove me bck to the police station but had to
leave me when they said they wantrd to take me back to the house for
quesioning. before i go on, id like to ssay that i was strictly told
not to speak about this, but im speaking with you people who are not
involved and who cant do anything bad except talk to journalists,
which i hope you wont do. i have to get this off my chest because its
pressing down on me and it helps to know that someone besides me knows
something, and that im not the one who knows the most out of everyone.
at the house they asked me very personal questions about meredith’s
life and also about the personalities of our neighbors. how well did i
know them? pretty well, we are friends. was meredith sexually active?
yeah, she borrowed a few of my condoms. does she like anal? wtf? i
dont know. does she use vaseline? for her lips? what kind of person is
stefano? nice guy, has a really pretty girlfriend.
hmmm…very interesting….weìd like to how you something, and tell us if this isout of normal.
tehy took me into the nieghbors house. the had breaken the door open
to get in, but they told me to ingonore that.
THE POLICE BREAK THE NEIGHBOR’S DOOR DOWN TO ASK AMANDA IF ANYTHING WAS OUT OF NORMAL??
the rooms were all open. giacomo and marco-n’s room was spotless which made since becaus the guys had thoroughly cleaned the whole house before they left on vacation.
NOW SHE KNOW’S THEY LEFT ON VACATION AND THAT THEY HAD CLEANED THE WHOLE HOUSE
stefano’s room however, well, his bed was strpped of linens, which was odd, and the comfoter he used was shoved up at the top of his bed, with blood on it. i obviously told then that the blood was definatley out of normal and also that he usually has his bed made.
they took note of it and ussred me out. when i left the house to go
back to the police station they told me to put my jacket over my head
and duck down below the window so the reporters wouldnt try to talk to
me. at the station i just had to repeat the answers that i had givne
at the house do they could type them up and after a good 5 and a half
hour day with the police again raffael picked me up and took me out
for some well-deserved pizza. i was starving. i then bought some
underwear because as it turns out i wont be able to leave italy for a
while as well as enter my house. i only had the clothes i was wearing
the day it bagan, so i bought some underwear and borrwed a pair of
pants from raffael.
Spoke with my remaining roommates that night (last night) and it was a
hurricane of emotions and stress but we needed it anyway. What we have
been discussing is bascially what to do next. We are trying to keep
our heads on straight. First things first though, my roommates both
work for lawyers, and they are going to try to send a request through
on monday to retrieve important documents of ours that are still in
the house. Secondly, we are going to talk to the agency that we used
to find our house and obviously request to move out. It kind of sucks
that we have to pay the next months rent, but the owner has protection
within the contract. After that, I guess I’ll go back to class on
monday, although im not sure what im going to do about people asking
me questions, because i really dont want to talk again about what
happened. Ive been talking an awful lot lately and im pretty tired of
it. After that, Its like im trying to remember what i was doing before
all this happened. I still need to figure out who i need to talk to
and what i need to do to continue studying in perugia, because its
what i want to do.
I WOULD WANT TO GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE IF I WERE
INNOCENT AND MY ROOMMATE WAS MURDERED. MEREDITH’S PHONES WERE FOUND PRACTICALLY ACROSS THE STREET FROM GUEDE’S HOUSE. WOULD HE HAVE BEEN SO STUPID TO THROW THEM THERE. LOOKS MORE LIKE SOMEONE THREW THEM THERE TO FRAME HIM. i REALLY HOPE THE INNOCENCE PROJECT LOOKS AT THIS CASE SO THAT MURDERERS DO NOT GET AWAY WITH MURDER WITH LIES AND MONEY
Anyway, thats the update, feeling okay, hope you all are well,
amanda
[Published in the Daily Telegraph, London, 8 November 2007]
HEY AMANDA, INNOCENT PEOPLE DO NOT IMPLICATE OTHER INNOCENT PEOPLE AND ACCUSE THEM OF MURDER. YOU FORGOT YOUR LAMP IN MEREDITH’S ROOM WHILE CLEANING UP THE CRIME SCENE AND YOU CALLED YOUR MOTHER AT 3:00 IN THE MORNING, HER TIME, BEFORE ANYONE KNEW THAT MEREDITH HAD BEEN MURDERED AND BEFORE THE POLICE ARRIVED TO BREAK DOWN THE DOOR. POS
Comodi: But from the records, we see that you called your mother – not only from the billing records but also from the cell phone pings – that you first called your mother at twelve. At midday. What time is it at midday? What time is it in Seattle, if in Perugia it is midday?
Amanda: In Seattle it’s morning. It’s a nine hour difference, so, ah, three in the morning.
Comodi: Three o’clock in the morning?
Amanda: Yes.
Comodi: So your mother would certainly have been sleeping.
Amanda: Yes.
Comodi: But at twelve o’clock, nothing had happened yet. That’s what your mother said…
Amanda: I told my mother…
Comodi: …during the conversation you had with her in prison. Even your mother was amazed that you called her at midday, which was three or four o’clock in the morning in Seattle, to tell her that nothing had happened.
Amanda: I didn’t know what had happened. I just called my mother to say that [the police] had sent us out of the house, and that I had heard something said about…
Comodi: But at midday nothing had happened yet in the sense that the door had not been broken down yet.
Amanda: Hm. Okay. I don’t remember that phone call. I remember that I called her to tell her what we had heard about a foot. Maybe I did call before, but I don’t remember it.
Comodi: But if you called her before, why did you do it?
Amanda: I don’t remember, but if I did it, I would have called to…
Comodi: You did it.
Amanda: Okay, that’s fine. But I don’t remember it. I don’t remember that phone call.
Massei: Excuse me. You might not remember it, but the Public Minister [prosecutor] has just pointed out to you a phone call that your mother received in the small hours.
Commodi: At three o’clock in the morning.
Massei: So, that must be true. That did happen. Were you in the habit of calling her at such an hour? Did you do this on other occasions? At midday in Italy, which corresponds in Seattle to a time when… It’s just that we don’t usually call each other in the middle of the night.
Amanda: Yes, yes, that’s true.
Massei: So either you had a particular reason on that occasion, or else it was a routine. This is what the Public Minister is referring to.
Amanda: Yes. Well, since I don’t remember this phone call, although I do remember the one I made later, ah. But. Obviously I made that phone call. So, if I made that phone call, it’s because I had, or thought that I had, something I had to tell her. Maybe I thought even then that there was something strange, because at that moment, when I’d gone to Raffaele’s place, I did think there was something strange, but I didn’t know what to think. But I really don’t remember this phone call, so I can’t say for sure why. But I suppose it was because I came home and the door was open, and so for me
The Calls to the Emergency Number
The evidence strongly suggests that Sollecito called the emergency number after the Communications Police had already arrived. To read a more detailed account of this please see:
The content of the calls are themselves suspicious. Sollecito gets questioned by the emergency operator and realizing he is in trouble he hangs up. A detailed discussion of the contents of the emergency phone call see:
Lying to the Police To Delay the Discovery of the Body
Around 12:30pm two officers of the Communications Police presented themselves at the cottage because they had recovered a phone belonging to Amanda’s roommate that had been tossed from the road into someone’s backward. This interaction eventually led to the Communications Police inquiring about Meredith’s locked door. Amanda Knox lied to the police to discourage them from inquiring any further about the door. The only reason for Knox to lie to the police is that she knew what was behind the door and she was attempting to delay the discovery.
For a more detailed discussion of Knox Attempting to Delay Discovery of Meredith’s Body
Oh dear! Not an auspicious start to your venture – the last Innocence Project to link with Amanda Knox had its Federal funding removed, Contact Idaho Innocence Project, they know all about the toxic Miss Knox