commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher’s in Perugia in 2009. They were sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison, respectively. Two years later, their convictions were overturned on appeal and they were released from custody. Then, in 2013, those acquittals were themselves overturned by the high court of Italy in Rome, which meant the case went back to the appellate level to be tried again.
The Italian judicial system loves to drag things out, a fact which was amply demonstrated by current prosecutor Alessandro Crini’s closing arguments which took place on Monday and Tuesday of this week and consumed approximately ten hours, an amazing phenomenon which may find a foothold in the Guinness Book of Records for one of the longest closing statements on record. Or maybe it’s always this way in high profile Italian cases. I’m not sure.
The current appeal — which is not a retrial or “double jeopardy” but a continuation of the same judicial procedure that began many moons ago — began in Florence on September 30th. A verdict is expected on or around January 10th, 2014. Once the verdict is official, it’s still not official; rather, it will once again be taken up by Italy’s high court to rule on the validity of the outcome of this appeal. In Italy, the land of never-ending jurisprudence, no case is officially closed until the high court signs off on it.
In his closing statements, Crini focused on both forensic and circumstantial evidence. In what may not come as somewhat of a surprise, in his statements, Crini seemed to be tipping the scales against Knox, apparently viewing her as substantially more guilty than Raffaele Sollecito.
Crini has abandoned the unsupportable theory that Kercher’s murder was the result of sex games gone wrong. Rather, he has introduced the notion that bad feelings between Kercher and Knox over issues of cleanliness were what triggered the savage and fatal attack. More specifically, Crini argued that Rudy Guede – the Ivory Coast native now nearing the end of a fast-tracked 16-year sentence for the murder — may have ramped up tensions between Knox and Kercher by defecating in a toilet inside the the womens’ apartment and failing to flush.
Crini insisted that the evidence showed that Guede, who was friendly with young men living in a neighboring apartment, had done the exact same thing the previous week:
“It is an absolutely disgusting and incongruous habit that he evidently had,” said Crini.
Well, this is certainly strange but I suppose it is possible that Guede and Knox and Sollecito were sufficiently angered by Kercher’s distaste for the non-flush approach to defecation that they murdered her to shut her up. There is some evidence that Knox was certainly not perturbed by the idea — given that when she returned to the apartment the morning following the murder and took a shower, she didn’t bother to flush the toilet but rather left the residue there in the bowl. Of course, if Knox was aware at that juncture that Kercher had been murdered, it’s entirely possible — if not probable — that she declined to flush because she wanted the residue to be discovered by the authorities, thus proving that Guede was at the scene of the crime.
So in essence, Crini appears to be stating that the residue in the unflushed toilet is emblematic, symbolic if you will, of the ongoing feud between Kercher and Knox over habits of hygiene.
Crini, however, is obviously not hanging his entire “prosecutorial hat” on the “turd in the toilet” theory. If fact, he asked the court to consider all the evidence used to convict Knox and Sollecito in 2009, three pieces of which are circumstantial in nature. This is the testimony that the first appellate court dismissed which is now back in play.
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Crini told the court that they should not ignore the testimony by Nara Capezzali, an elderly neighbor who testified that she heard a blood curdling scream the night Kercher was murdered, followed by what she said were several people running away from the house and up the metal steps near her home. (This strikes me as a weak argument since it could have been anyone running up the metal steps.)
- Crini also told the court not to ignore the testimony by Antonio Curatolo, a homeless man who has since died, who said he saw Knox and Sollecito arguing and agitated late on the night of the murder as they allegedly looked over the crime scene from a perch near where he slept on a park bench. (This would appear to be much stronger assuming that the Signor Curatolo was acquainted — at least in passing — with Knox and Sollecito, thus rendering him able to identify them.
- Crini also said the court needed to believe the testimony by Marco Quintavalle, a storeowner who claimed he saw a woman who looked like Knox buying bleach and cleaning supplies the morning after the murder. (This piece of evidence could certainly carry some weight in the eyes of the Court.)
The DNA Evidence:
In my opinion, the unflushed toilet theory in combination with the circumstantial evidence is not sufficiently strong by itself to convict Knox. For the Court to ultimately choose to convict the American girl, it will — I believe — have to be swayed by the DNA evidence which is as follows:
A knife that the prosecution claims was the murder weapon was found in Sollecito’s apartment during the initial days of the investigation. A tiny bit of DNA, which the prosecution maintains belonged to Kercher, was found in a tiny groove on the blade. There has been some controversy all along because the spot was too small to double-test, and it had to be amplified beyond the standard measures of practice in forensic science. In the original trial, DNA attributable to Knox was found on the handle of the knife. That, together with the alleged Kercher DNA, was the crucial evidence that was instrumental in convicting the Seattle native. During the first appeal, the tiny speck of Kercher’s DNA was deemed inconclusive by independent experts because it was too small to double-test.
Now, however, because the first appellate court’s acquittal has been thrown out, the DNA evidence is back in play and the fact that both Kercher and Knox’s DNA were arguably found on the knife could certainly work against Knox. Furthermore, when the knife was re-rested during the new appeal, a new examination of a previously untested spot on the blade near the handle again proved that Knox had at some point held the knife.
Naturally, in his closing statements, Crini asked that the original findings — that Kercher’s DNA is on the blade — be considered in their final verdict in the new appeal. His contention is that the new tests prove conclusively that Knox was the murderer.
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There is little doubt that Crini’s focus on Knox is intended, among other things, to demonstrate that he believes the American is far more culpable than Sollecito. On Monday, Crini did not ask that the court to consider forensic evidence used to convict Sollecito in the first trial—namely, his DNA on the metal hook from Kercher’s bra clasp.
Crini insists that Knox and Sollecito’s alibis are not tenable, especially given the number of times their stories changed during the initial investigation. Returning to his “unflushed toilet” theory, Crini also asked the court to consider whether Knox’s actions were normal the morning after the murder and why she did not flush the toilet when she noticed feces in it. Crini insisted that surely anyone would flush the toilet under any normal circumstance:
“Why leave the toilet unflushed?” he asked.
Crini also suggested that the fact Knox was not alarmed when she returned to the apartment in the morning and found that the door open, even though no one was home, was not normal.
On Monday, Crini wrapped up his closing arguments by asking asking the court “not to make the same mistakes” as the first appellate court in Perugia. “When you separate the elements rather than uniting them, you lose the whole picture,” he said.
Knox and Sollecito’s defense teams will have their chance to refute Crini’s claims on December 16 and 17 when the court will once again be in session. They are expected to try and deflate Crini’s arguments by claiming that the prosecution’s radical switch from sex games to the “toilet theory” is a sign of confusion and desperation on their part. Meanwhile, everyone who is heavily invested in the outcome of this compelling matter will just have to sweat it out for another 46 days.
Note: Much of the factual content cited in this post was drawn from an article by Barbie Latza Nadeau of the Daily Beast posted on Nov. 25, 2013 and an article by Colleen Barry of the Associated Press dated Nov. 26, 2013.