The Inevitable Unexpected and The Theory of the Crime

It’s called the “inevitable unexpected.” It dropped your jaw at the end of the movie Sixth Sense when you realized that “I see dead people” was why the kid could see Bruce Willis. Bruce’s character was dead from the first scene, you saw him die, but it somehow slipped your mind. It was inevitable. It had to be, but even at the very last, it was unexpected.

And it was the inevitable unexpected that turned your stomach in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Psycho,when you found out that Norman Bates’ maniacal mother was Norman himself. Of course! It had to be. Why didn’t I see that?

Now, the Meredith Kercher murder case has a series of inevitable unexpecteds that are fully worthy of the phrase. They turn your stomach every bit as much as Psycho. In just the first of these, there is striking evidence that is absolutely devastating to the case against Amanda and Raffaele, and that begins to make the case against the Perugian justice authorities themselves.

Rudy Guede, whom the overwhelming evidence points to as the murderer of Meredith Kercher, was a police informant.

In an article in the British newspaper The Daily Express, Bob Graham reveals the stunning news that Rudy Guede committed an entire series of crimes in the month before the murder of Meredith Kercher, crimes that were deliberately ignored by Italian authorities.

“It reveals the third person convicted of killing British student Meredith Kercher had committed six serious crimes over 33 days before the killing.

But robberies carried out by small-time drug dealer Rudy Guede were ignored by Italian authorities, raising suspicions that he was a police informer.”

It is a well known fact that police often overlook crimes committed by informants, and it is a well known fact that one of the marks of an informant is that they can get away with crimes. From the Wikipedia entry on informants:

“Quite frequently, confidential informants (or criminal informants) will provide information in order to obtain lenient treatment for themselves and provide information, over an extended period of time, in return for money or for police to overlook their own criminal activities. Quite often someone will become an informant following their arrest.”

This information, in addition to previously revealed information (Wikipedia) about Rudy’s breaking and entering activity shows that Rudy Guede, the murderer of Meredith Kercher, in all probability worked for and was protected by someone in Perugia. All of this provides powerful evidence that Rudy was an informant. We don’t yet know what Rudy informed about. We don’t yet know exactly who he informed for, but the evidence points to Perugia. That is where he lived. That is where he committed  most of his crimes while under protection.

The Perugian Powers that Be

Because we don’t yet have complete information on this development in the case,  we will need to define some terms to, in part, encompass our uncertainty. This is a bit like the favorite phrase of the Polizia Scientifica: “it is compatible with,” meaning something like, “I can’t prove it isn’t.” I’ll need to refer to the “Perugian Powers that Be” or "PPB."  By this, I’m referring to an as yet unknown combination of the prosecutors, the polizia, and perhaps even the judges in Perugia. We don’t know exactly who was involved, and we don’t know what their roles were. That is something that remains to be determined, and which will require extensive investigation, probably taking years to sort out.

I don’t mean that the entire Perugian justice system was involved, but just some combination of agents within it. The polizia, prosecutors, and judges in Perugia are not a monolithic group. That group includes many individuals who sometimes work in concert, and are sometimes at odds.

But one of the shining lights of this group, and one who is unquestionably involved, is PM Giuliano Mignini. Another likely suspect is Edgardo Giobbi (actually in Rome), the head detective who by his own admission, determined Amanda’s guilt “psychologically” without the need to collect evidence.  We might also include a couple judges who have acted more like prosecutors than as triers of truth.

The courts and polizia in Perugia operate as a much more tightly knit unit than justice systems in the United States. As prosecutor, for instance, Mignini has been in charge of the investigation of Knox and Sollecito. It is not an independent effort performed by the Polizia with results reported back to Mignini. Instead, Mignini actually ran the investigation. 

For all of these reasons, the Perugian Powers that Be (PPB) or the Perugian justice authorities, will refer to an inexactly known group when we are uncertain about who was involved. We will have to fill in the details at some later time. For now, we are working to paint a picture in broad brush strokes to gain an understanding, at long last, as to what has happened.

Echoes of the Past

In the Monster of Florence case, described in the book of the same name by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi, the murders themselves were the first crimes, while the investigation and prosecution comprised an entire second wave of crimes in which innocents were imprisoned and lives were ruined. This wave of incompetent investigation and criminal misconduct by the polizia and prosecutor continues to this day, more than 25 years after the couples were murdered.

PM Mignini and Chief Inspector Giuttari have both just recently been convicted for their activities in the course of this investigation. Because of those activities, many others are now on trial, charged with preposterously improbable acts of obstructing justice. Spezi is among those now having to defend himself against absurd charges.

So it is not surprising that in the Meredith Kercher murder, you had the original horrific crime followed by such a badly performed investigation and prosecution that the aftermath has been nearly as destructive. Lives have been forever altered, years of freedom and youth have already been stolen forever, and the toll goes on and on.

I’ve Been Working on the Railroad

The new information that Rudy was an informant is a kind of missing link. We don’t have all the data yet, but it enables us to better understand things that have puzzled us all along.  Now we can begin to connect the dots. When you connect the dots, you tie together the pieces so that you can see the big picture from the little parts.

We’re going to develop a theory of the crime. I’m not talking about the murder itself. I’m talking about the crime of railroading Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. This driven, unfair, relentlessly coercive prosecution has been rightly called a “railroad job from hell” by investigator Paul Ciolino. Now we want to develop a theory of that crime that can be tested against the data, to be refined if it works and corrected if it doesn’t. That is far more honest than the treatment of Amanda and Raffaele, for whom the verdicts were in before the evidence was collected.

All along the way, those who are seeking real justice in this case have been hobbled by obstacles. Some of these were unavoidable, but have been exaggerated by the prosecution’s resistance to accommodation. Other barriers have been actively introduced. Information that should have been available to the defense has been withheld as a matter of routine. Much that should be known is unknown. Much that should be in the open is inaccessible.

Because of these obstacles we must operate without complete knowledge, but we cannot let roadblocks thrown in our path prevent us from achieving justice. There are two innocent people still imprisoned in Perugia. We cannot accept a situation where “I don’t know for sure” becomes “I can’t help.” We will not allow ourselves to be hampered to the point of helplessness.

There are many things that we know but that are denied by those who have their own agendas. We know, for example, that there is no evidence against Amanda and Raffaele, because they are innocent. So we won’t even bother to debate that here. It is a fact, and one of the critical starting points for really understanding what has happened. Now we are moving beyond those debates.

We will combine what we know with what we have recently learned. Rudy’s role as an informant is a kind of keystone, a central piece that helps tie together the elements. Then we’ll overlap these facts with some of the questions we’ve had all along. Finally, I’ll put forth a theory of the crime. It’s just a theory – it will have to be tested. Perhaps some mysteries will finally become clear.

The Dots


Dot # 1  Amanda and Raffaele are innocent. Everyone knows it. Virtually everyone knowledgeable about the case and not blinded by bias, self interest, or hatred has known it all along. If you have any remaining doubts about this, read “Professional Opinion From Retired FBI Agent Steve Moore.”

Dot # 2  Rudy Guede is guilty of the murder of Meredith Kercher, and everyone knows that, too. The evidence against him is overwhelming. He may have had a breaking and entering partner, we don’t know for sure, but Rudy killed Meredith and Amanda and Raffaele were not even there.

Dot # 3  Mignini is at the heart of the Perugian Powers that Be. In the small town of Perugia, nothing significant in the Perugian justice system escapes Mignini’s awareness.

Dot # 4  Rudy was an informant, probably for the Perugian authorities. While he was protected as an informant, he committed burglaries and was caught with stolen property and a 10” kitchen knife. Every time he was caught, someone from PPB set him free. When he was merely spotted, someone gave the word and he was not investigated.

Dot # 5  Connecting Dots 3 and 4, because of his central, commanding position in the PPB, Mignini almost certainly knew that Rudy was an informant.

Dot # 6  Connecting Dots 2, 4, and 5, Rudy Guede committed the murder of Meredith Kercher while under protection as an informant, and Mignini knew it.

Dot # 7  Rudy could have revealed his status as an informant at his trial or otherwise, but he chose not to. He could have used that fact to argue “good behavior” as part of his plea for leniency, but he chose not to. He had an absolute ace in his pocket, but he chose not to play it in a desperate game for his freedom. Why?

Dot # 8  Rudy has been treated with a degree of lenience that is amazing. He has already had his sentence reduced to 16 years, and it will likely be further reduced. He could walk in less than 10 years, while he is still a young man. He has even had his reputation somewhat restored for showing “remorse” and apologizing to the Kerchers for not having “fought hard enough to save Meredith.” Rudy has been shown great lenience by PPB.

Dot # 9  Giuliano Mignini was under tremendous pressure during this entire period from the ongoing investigation into his misconduct in the Narducci investigation, an offshoot of the Monster of Florence case. He was ultimately convicted and, if he doesn’t get the conviction overturned on appeal, will be banned for life from serving as either a prosecutor or a judge. His career will be finished.

Dot # 10  Amanda and Raffaele have been relentlessly prosecuted, absolutely railroaded by the PPB. This, in spite of the total lack of evidence against them. With his filing of an appeal of the “lenient” 25 and 26 year sentences given to Raffaele and Amanda, Mignini is making an effort to inject himself into the appeals trials, from which he would ordinarily be excluded.

Dot # 11  The Polizia grabbed a single item from Raffaele’s kitchen drawer, a big kitchen knife, for no apparent reason. They labeled it “the knife” and claimed that it was the murder weapon.

A Few Questions

Next, just a few of the questions that have gone unanswered.

1)  Why did Mignini railroad Amanda and Raffaele? We have speculated that he is obsessed, that he believed in the ridiculous satanic ritual story of the spirit-channeling blogger Carlizzi, but it was never really convincing. It was never really satisfying in the way that the truth is. There was no driver, no motive beyond crazy, pointless obsession. I spoke with one journalist who has knowledge of the case and has met with Mignini. They said, “He is crazy, but crazy like a fox.”

2)  What was the PPB’s motive for being so lenient with Rudy?

3)  When Rudy was arrested and found to match extensive DNA, handprint, and shoeprint evidence, why weren’t Amanda and Raffaele released? When they captured the guilty party, why didn’t they release the innocent?

4)  Why did the Polizia pluck a single, large kitchen knife from Raffaele’s drawer?

5)  Why did the PPB pressure Amanda to accuse Patrick Lumumba?

6) Why was Rudy so brazen as to go out dancing on the night he killed Meredith?

A Theory of the Crime

We have always really lacked a theory of the crime. Not the crime of the murder – we pretty much know what happened there. The other crime. The criminal act of knowingly and deliberately prosecuting two innocent people for murder.

Let’s see if we can now develop one that makes sense and that is compatible with the evidence.

We must remember that this a theory. It is not proven, it is a model of what may have happened. One takes such a model and compares it with the facts. If the facts don’t match, the model must be corrected. But if it explains a lot of things, and if it proves to have what is called “predictive power,” that is, if it leads to predictions that can be tested and verified, then it gains weight as an accurate theory.

A Theory of the Crime of Framing Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito

Rudy committed some crime, probably breaking and entering, and came to the attention of the Perugian justice authorities. He cut a deal with them, becoming an informant in exchange for being released.

While working as an informant, Rudy continued his other careers, selling drugs and burglarizing homes and offices. He wasn’t a very good burglar, being spotted in action and even captured a number of times. When this happened, he would play his “Get out of Jail Free” card by calling the PPB. They would call whoever was holding him and he would be released. Then he would commit more burglaries. In the course of getting away with one crime after another, Rudy grew in confidence to the point of arrogance. He had a virtual license to commit crime.

On November 1, 2007, one of Rudy’s badly flawed burglaries turned out even worse than the rest. Meredith Kercher came home at the wrong time and, being a fighter, she fought, and lost. Rudy murdered her, abused her, grabbed some compact, valuable items (her cell phones and money) and fled. Since he had come to think of himself as nearly invulnerable, he didn’t cringe in fear at what he had done, but went out dancing, both that night and the following. Then, perhaps coming to his senses and realizing that he had overstepped his authority, he fled to Germany.

At some point after the discovery of the murder, someone in the PPB realized that the killer was their own man, their own informant. This knowledge may have come very soon if someone recognized the M.O. of Rudy, who had performed numerous burglaries in the same way in the previous month, or it may have taken some time, perhaps until he was captured in Germany and the first fingerprint and DNA evidence came back.

At that point of recognition, that "Oh my God!" moment, calls were made, conferences were held. What to do? A criminal who was working for them and under their protection had committed  murder. The murder never would have occurred if Rudy had not been protected. His ongoing pattern of serious crimes was a clear indication that he should have been reigned in, but he was not. The Perugian justice authorities clearly bear some responsibility for the murder of Meredith Kercher.

The PPB discussed the situation and realized that it had hit the fan in a way they never intended. It certainly wasn’t their plan for Meredith Kercher to be murdered. It was an unfortunate consequence of decisions they made to achieve justice. At some point the cover-up began.

Rudy knew things that could destroy careers, bring down important work, and damage valuable investigations. There were a thousand excuses to cover up what had actually happened. How could Rudy’s silence be ensured?

They had to have something to offer him. If the responsibility for the murder of Meredith Kercher landed squarely on Rudy, they had no bargaining chip. Rudy’s best hope would have been to say he was working as an informant, just doing his job. That would have brought down the house of cards.

They needed a scapegoat. They needed someone to blame to get Rudy off the hook. The PPB weren’t looking for the murderer in their investigation. Of course, the men in the field didn’t know that. They were doing their jobs, and you never tell the little guys anything. But the higher-ups knew who did it and they were looking for someone to blame.

At first they tried to pin the blame on Patrick Lumumba. They tried to substitute Lumumba, a black man, for Rudy, another black man. This is why they put such bizarre emphasis on the casual text message, “See ya later.” They browbeat Amanda into her sleep-deprived “vision,” in her words, of Patrick committing the murder, and brought him in. But unfortunately Patrick had an airtight alibi. And then the news came that Rudy had been captured in Germany.

Once the DNA evidence and handprints were in, they knew that they couldn’t escape the fact that Rudy was there and that he was clearly involved. It was a disaster. Not only had they lost Lumumba, but now Rudy was definitively placed at the scene of the crime. Now more than ever, they needed somone to take the rap.  If they were to have anything to offer Rudy, they needed somone to play the central role, the mastermind, so that Rudy could be… demoted, so to speak, to a secondary role. Perhaps even a sympathetic one.

It has always been a mystery why the PPB didn’t release Amanda and Raffaele when they captured Rudy. He was clearly there, clearly the murderer. He had all kinds of prior crimes. Instead, the PPB “substituted one black guy for another” and kept Amanda and Raffaele in custody. It doesn’t make sense, unless, they needed a scapegoat for the crime more than ever and were trying to save their skins by cutting a deal with him. Ironically, it was actually a double substitution, first Patrick for Rudy, then Rudy for Patrick. It's almost an echo of the preposterous Narducci double corpse swap claim. (Monster of Florence, p. 210, 213)

Without Patrick, all they had were these kids, close to the crime. They discovered it. These lovebirds. Arrogant, different, they didn’t act right. She was American, pretty – too pretty, and he was from a family about which rumors swirled. There were other roommates, but they had fled back home, or they were Italian, and not as interesting. This Amanda Knox, she has the blue eyes of a devil, and she swiveled her hips when we took her to the crime scene. She was a perfect target for the repressed PPB. 

This is why Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were found guilty before the evidence was even gathered. They had to be guilty for the cover-up to work. The evidence was merely details to fill in later. What better scapegoat than a “she devil” a controller of men, who could manipulate poor Rudy into doing her will? Amanda was nearly perfect for the role they cast her in.

With scapegoats in place, Rudy was demoted to a secondary role in the murder. The astounding judicial redemption of Rudy Guede by the PPB is a matter of record. They could no longer let him go free, but they could offer him lenient treatment. Without it, he would have done 30 years. With it, perhaps fewer than 10. They had the necessary bargaining chip to ensure his silence.

The Inevitable Unexpected

Perhaps we now have an understanding of some of the unknowns in this case. These answers were as inevitable as they were unexpected, and yet they ring true and are compatible with the evidence. The above theory of the crime suggests the following:

Rudy worked for the Perugian justice authorities. He murdered Meredith Kercher while under their employ and protection.

The Perugian justice authorities bear responsibility for the murder of Meredith Kercher. 

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were railroaded into a wrongful conviction because they were needed as scapegoats. Without them, the PPB would have nothing with which to buy the silence of Rudy Guede.

The polizia grabbed a knife, one single knife out of many from Raffaele’s kitchen drawer, not because they imagined that Raff kept the murder weapon there and they had magically guessed which one. It was because they knew that Rudy carried big kitchen knives when he committed burglaries, and they thought he might do so when he committed murder. They also knew that, by remarkable coincidence, that one knife would just happen to have Meredith’s DNA on it. Stefanoni’s arcane laboratory techniques ensured that finding. The autopsy report showing smaller knife wounds was not yet available, remember, and they could not wait. They believed that a large knife would match the wounds. This later proved to be a mistake requiring an awkward, two knife theory.

They drove Amanda to accuse Patrick because they were looking for a black man to substitute for Rudy in the murder. Best to have the closest substitute murderer available.

Amanda and Raffaele weren’t set free when Rudy was captured because they knew all along that Rudy was guilty, and they were trying desperately to get him off. They needed Amanda and Raffaele as scapegoats more than ever.

And finally, we can perhaps understand some of the vilification of Amanda Knox. When you do something terrible to someone, one of the processes that kicks in is to find justifications for why you did that wrong. Psychologists call it “transference.”

The PPB didn’t do terrible things to Amanda because they despised her. They despised her because they did terrible things to her. They had to rationalize what they had done. They needed Amanda as a scapegoat to save themselves. They needed to view Amanda as an evil person to avoid realizing that they themselves were evil.

A Call to Arms

While this is just a theory of the crime that I've developed, to me it rings stunningly true. Viewed through this lens many unexplained actions fall perfectly into place. It implies that there has been serious misconduct within the Perugian justice system, not merely quirky behavior or incompetence. For that reason this is a call to arms, a call for investigation by journalists, bloggers, other observers, and more highly placed powers in Italy. 

The Perugian justice authorities will not correct themselves, they must be stopped.

Copyright, 2010, Mark C. Waterbury. Ph.D.

The Framing of Amanda Knox

Here's another important article in CBS Crimesider, from the producers of 48 Hours Mystery, that shows that Amanda's picture was hung in Italian Police "Hall of Shame" alongside convicted mafia dons, BEFORE she was even charged, let alone tried.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20002467-504083.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody


For anyone who still doubts that Amanda was railroaded by the Italian justice system, this article is damning evidence. 

Important Article by Former FBI Agent Steve Moore

A very important article by a former FBI agent with 25 years of experience at investigating violent crime has been posted at:

http://www.injusticeinperugia.com/FBI.html

Steve's article describes this case's appalling police work, preconceived ideas, and constantly changing prosecution theories with tremendous authority. It is a must read for anyone who cares about restoring justice to Amanda and Raffaele.

Lie of the Month Club

It is as if there is some form of “Lie of the Month Club” at work here. When the “cleanup” myth is corrected, and abandoned even by the prosecution, and the bleach receipts turn out to be non-existent, then even some of the most dedicated of the “Guilters” give up and admit that “the Knife” had nothing to do with the murder. When twisted truth, after distorted fact, after groundless innuendo gets shot down by the facts, somewhere, out of some dark heart, a new Lie is born about Amanda Knox. The latest one, recycled from earlier claims, is “mixed blood.”

This claim is that Amanda’s blood, mixed with Meredith’s, was found in five different places in the apartment that they shared. This was never claimed by the prosecution, it was never testified to in the trial. The forensics experts said no such thing. There is no way that they could, because there was never any test that found Amanda’s blood mixed with Meredith's.

First, let’s get one thing straight. DNA tests determine the presence of DNA. They do not specify the source of that DNA, whether it is from blood, or other biological matter. They can discriminate sperm, or egg DNA, “haploid DNA” but that is another matter. So the DNA tests that found mixed traces of DNA, found just that, DNA, they did not find mixed traces of blood. No other tests have made any such determination. Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher shared a bathroom. There is nothing whatsoever surprising about Amanda’s DNA being present in Amanda’s bathroom and apartment. Your DNA is in your bathroom, I guarantee it. 

The mixed samples were samples of Meredith’s blood, with Amanda’s shed skin from normal bathroom cleaning. There is nothing surprising about this, and it has no probative value in this case. That is, it doesn’t mean a damned thing that Amanda’s DNA was found in Amanda’s own house!

That’s the technical background, but you don’t even need to go there to realize that this is absolute nonsense. It is nonsense for a very basic reason. Amanda Knox had no wounds. She had what resembled a faint hickey on her neck, and that was recorded in detail. She had no other wounds. So where is all this blood supposed to have come from?

A nosebleed? Menstruation? Neither of which has anything to do with a crime. Amanda did, in fact, have a recently pierced ear, which had become infected. This ear piercing was apparently the source of a small amount of her dried blood on one faucet, in her own bathroom. Just Amanda’s, no one else's. There was nothing resembling the kind of blood that would have resulted had she been involved in any kind of violent assault.

Yet we have a new Lie of the Month regarding Amanda Knox. It sounds bad. It is like the Knife lie, but is the new talking point, and needs to be shot down just like those. As I wrote in The Media Lottery, “Let’s see if the Ace Journalists can write articles full of lies claiming that your daughter has a wild sex life and murderous psychological makeup, faster than you can refute them.”www.sciencespheres.com

Amanda Knox, Winner of the Media Lottery

In Shirley Jackson’s classic short story, The Lottery, the residents of a small town participate in a lottery that no one seems eager to win.

“Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones...”

The entire town  was involved,  as if it were a square dance, or a Halloween party, but with less enthusiasm.

“The (men) stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed.”

The lottery slips were drawn from an old black box, made from shards of an even older black box.

“Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box.”

A brand new lottery box has finally been made, and it’s a beauty. It doesn’t have sides or a top, but it was surely built from shards of black boxes going back to ancient times. It is vast and varied. We’ll call it the “Media Lottery.”

When you won the lottery in Jackson’s story, your fellow townspeople stoned you to death. When you win the Media Lottery, the outcome isn’t much better. 

To see how the Media Lottery works, let’s play a little game. To keep it from becoming personal, we’ll leave you out of it. The Media Lottery has selected a winner: Your daughter. You play Parent, they place Ace Journalists. This is the object of the game: Let’s see if the Ace Journalists can write articles full of lies claiming that your daughter has a wild sex life and murderous psychological makeup, faster than you can refute them.

Here are the rules. The Ace Journalists make money telling the sensationalistic lies. Magazines, newspapers, and websites make money spreading them. The more sensational the lies are, the more money they make. And the longer your daughter rots in prison for a crime she did not commit. 

How do you like the game so far?

This may sound overstated, and I certainly don’t mean that the entire media behaves this way. After all, this is the media. There are many dedicated journalists who have worked hard on this case to get the facts straight and to present them honestly. But much of the Media Lottery game has been played every bit as badly as this in the trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in Perugia, Italy. Moreover, this was done, not only by the tabloid press where it might be expected, but by much of the mainstream media as well. To show this, let’s begin with an excerpt from an article in people.co.uk dated December 6, 2009.

“Amanda Knox: Inside the Sex Crazed World of the American Killer Student”

Nothing sensationalistic about that. Perhaps I have overstated. Read on.

“Evil Amanda Knox was yesterday branded a ‘cold, calculating man-eater’ by a teacher who was shocked at the killer's promiscuous lifestyle. Sonia Giugliarell said the sex-crazed American was bedding FIVE lovers when she was arrested for murdering fellow student Meredith Kercher, 21. Language tutor Sonia, 41, said: ‘There was a demon inside her that nothing could control. Knox slept with different men to make herself feel important and powerful.”

To create this smear, the writer has interviewed some language tutor who barely knew “evil” Amanda, and who is apparently moonlighting as a psychiatrist, or a mind reader. Nice. But where did the tutor get these ideas? Even nicer.

Doctor’s Call

A month or so after Amanda was captured and imprisoned, she got some bad news from the doctor. Well, not a real doctor, just someone the polizia or prosecutor sent to pretend to be a doctor. This impersonator informed Amanda that she was HIV positive, carrying the AIDS virus and essentially sentenced to death. It was a lie. A shameful, baseless lie, apparently intended to break her. These same people deny using undue pressure to coerce Amanda during her interrogation.

How did Amanda  respond to this terrible lie? She did the right thing. At the request of the “doctor,” she listed every sexual partner she had been with in her entire life so that they could be notified that they might have been exposed to the AIDS virus, and could receive treatment to slow it’s advance. She also wrote about it in her prison diary, in an effort to come to grips with her fears. She’d been with about the average number of partners, but in much of the press her entire sexual history was collapsed into her two months in Italy.

In spite of Amanda’s cooperation, the polizia did not get what they wanted most, she did not list Rudy Guede, the murderer of Meredith Kercher. This was because Amanda barely knew him. The HIV lie became just another cruelty inflicted on her, one more legal and ethical violation among many. But, not to let a good lie go to waste, they leaked her diary to the press, in violation of Italian law. The article above is just one example of how this leak became a slander in the press. That article came out nearly two years after the initial leak, plenty of time for the reporter to get the facts straight, if he’d had an interest in accuracy. 

The Book of Barbie

Some of the sharpest stones thrown in the Media Lottery of Amanda Knox have been hurled by travel and dining columnist Barbie Latza Nadeau. For that reason, and because she has written a book that is just as bad, let’s look at several of her pieces.

She has almost completely ignored the actual murderer, Rudy Guede. Not much of a story there, and certainly nothing to build her career on. The real facts of the case are fairly ordinary, and far less marketable than manufactured ones. She has only paid cursory notice to the other accused, Raffaele Sollecito. But Barbie seems to have a special fascination for Amanda. One source who has watched her in Perugia called it “a hatred.”

Here’s what Barbie did with Amanda’s diary in a Newsweek online article dated July 14, 2008.

“And by her own account in a prison diary leaked to the media, she details her sexual escapades with at least seven men she'd been with in her three months in Italy before her arrest.  She even wrote that she might have HIV and then she uses a process of elimination to narrow down who might have given it to her.”

Think about this paragraph for a moment. The contempt for the truth is breathtaking. It begins with “she details her sexual escapades,” an expression designed to titillate readers. Amanda does no such thing. Her diary comprises 80 pages of clinging to hope, fighting back despair, proclamations of innocence, belief that her innocence will ultimately prevail, and pleading “please, please, please” let her regain her freedom and resume her life. It is painful and heart wrenching to read. No objective reader could go through Amanda’s prison diary and describe it as “detailing sexual escapades.”

Barbie moves on to “She even wrote that she might have HIV…” as if it were a whimsical thought, yet another indication of Amanda’s wild behavior, rather than a horrific torment, a terrible fear.

How would you feel in her position? You’re in jail in a foreign country for a murder you did not commit, facing likely conviction anyway, and spending the rest of your life in prison. But, you’ve just been told that you are HIV positive, so, your life won’t be that long. Good time for carefree sex talk.

Here is some of what Amanda actually wrote in her diary as she went through the agonizing process of trying to determine whether she might have contracted HIV:

“I had a raging headache because this is by far the worst experience of my life. I’m in prison for a crime I didn’t commit, & I might have HIV.

I don’t want to die. I want to get married and have children. I want to create something good. I want to get old. I want my time. I want my life. Why why why? I can’t believe this.

Thirdly, I don’t know where I could have got HIV from.... “

This is where Amanda tries to figure out how she might have been exposed.

“Oh please please let it be a mistake. Please oh please let it not be true. I don’t want to die.”

Judge for yourself. Look at what Amanda wrote, and how Barbie described it. Are these the words of a young woman “detailing her sexual escapades” as if it were a lark, or has Barbie Nadeau seriously misstated matters? A young woman was desperately hoping that her life wasn’t ending tragically, while Barbie hurled stones at her with a mixture of self righteous moral indignation, and glee. 

PM Mignini, Amanda’s prosecutor and the prime architect of the campaign to destroy her, was interviewed recently by an Italian reporter about the HIV lie. Here is how he evaded the issue:

Paglieri: “And let us speak of the ‘HIV.’ Amanda, while in prison was told that she was HIV positive and she was asked to make a list of her former lovers to warn them of the danger. Then she discovered that it was a "false positive" and became suspect that it was a trick.”

PM Mignini: "I did not ask anything of the kind of Amanda. We always have the utmost respect for suspects. Why should I?"

Paglieri: “Why then, was the list all over the press which helped to create a negative image of the girl as an "easy" woman?”

PM Mignini: "Nobody has created an image of Amanda as an "easy" girl. Why would I need to?"

Mignini says “I did not ask anything of the kind....” Who said he did? She was asked by the fake doctor. He further says, “Nobody has created an image of Amanda as an ‘easy’ girl.” How can he possibly make such a statement after two years of press smears on two continents? Read the media quotes in this article to decide whether anyone has created such an image.

Barbie Nadeau hasn’t limited herself to distortions fed to her by the prosecution. She also makes up her own material. In the Daily Beast on December 4, 2009 she writes about the announcement of conviction:

“At one point the stepmother of Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s former boyfriend who was sentenced to 25 years for his part in the murder, yelled out “F__k you!”

No one else in the courtroom heard those words. Everyone else heard “Forte, Raffaele!” Italian, for “Strength, Raffaele.” That makes sense, the curse doesn’t. Were it not for Barbie’s lack of concern for accuracy, this error could have been easily checked, and corrected , simply by asking other observers.

Here’s a clever attack by Barbie, dated December 6, 2009 in the Daily Beast. 

“When the two got into the prison van at the end of each hearing, the press had bets on whether or not they got to have sex the whole way back, or whether they just talked dirty to each other through the bars.”

Imagine riding back to prison in a police van after spending the day on trial for murder. This, in Barbie’s mind, is a sexy atmosphere. The passage paints yet another nasty picture of sex-crazed fiends, and does so without any evidence. She didn’t actually say that the two had sex in the back of the van, or talked dirty, only that “the press had bets,” so it leaves no tracks. How can it be refuted?

Well, for one thing, they didn’t ride in the same van. They were transported in two separate vehicles, so the whole notion is fabricated. It states nothing factual while slamming Amanda  just the same. “The press had bets….” Which press? Can you refute this smear, faster than Barbie can tell it? 

I have my own speculation as to what Amanda and Raffaele would have said to each other if they actually had ridden back to prison together after each day in court. Through the bars of the police van, to the bars of Capanne prison. The conversation is purely hypothetical, but it would go something like this:

“I can’t believe this is happening. It just goes on and on.”

“Try to stay strong. Try to keep your spirits up. We’ll make it through this.”

“How can they believe that we did it? There’s no evidence!”

“They don’t. They’re in it to save face. Or for the fame, money....”

“Who would do that? Who would ruin our lives, our lives, just to make a fast buck?”

“Barbie Nadeau.”

Like I said, it’s purely hypothetical.

Remember Barbie’s two false options from this, each as bad or worse than the other, because this is a trick she has played before. Take a look at the title of her piece in the Daily Beast,  Dec 6, 2009.

“The New Face of Evil 

Is the real Amanda Knox the sex-obsessed, cold-blooded murderer that the prosecution depicted? Or worse?”

This raises a few questions. Shouldn’t there be another possibility? Like, innocent? How is it possible to be “worse” than a “sex-obsessed, cold-blooded murderer?” Would you call this fair, balanced reporting? Could it be that Barbie is more excited about advancing her own prospects by sensationalizing someone else’s misfortune than she is about factual reporting? Is she merely determined to make the move from travel reporting into real journalism, or is she is hurling stones at the winner of the Media Lottery with real enthusiasm?

“Knox's infamy will only continue to grow as details from the trial make titillating headlines for the next year or longer.”– Barbie

For an Ace Journalist on the case, these words are golden. Growing infamy! Titillating headlines! A year or longer!  Think of all the stories, the exposure, the fame! Of course, for an innocent young woman being stoned to death by a media mob, they are less exhilarating.

A final entry from the Book of Barbie. It highlights her taste for getting it sensational, at the expense of getting it right.

2009-02-18 The Daily Beast “Sex and Murder in Italy”

Barbie misquotes Amanda’s diary as follows:

“In one entry, she describes the night of the crime: ‘That night I smoked a lot of marijuana and I fell asleep at my boyfriend’s house. I don’t remember anything. But I think it’s possible that Raffaele went to Meredith’s house, raped her and then killed. And when he got home, while I was sleeping, he put my fingerprints on the knife. But I don’t understand why Raffaele would do that.’ (This is one of several different accounts she has given of her whereabouts, earlier claiming that she was in the villa and heard Meredith’s screams.)”

Barbie wrote this in February of 2009. She had a year to get the quote straight, but failed. The quote she used is from a bad Italian-to-English translation, of a bad English-to-Italian translation (I’m not making this up) of Amanda’s actual diary entry. The real quote from Amanda’s private diary had long been a matter of public record when Barbie wrote this piece because it was leaked to the press by the Perugian authorities. What Amanda actually wrote, taken from her diary word-for-word, meant  the exact opposite of Barbie’s version.

“ So unless Raffaele decided to get up after I fell asleep, grabbed said knife, went over to my house, used it to kill Meredith, came home, cleaned the blood off, rubbed my fingerprints all over it, put it away, then tucked himself back into bed, and then pretended really well the next couple of days, well, I just highly doubt all of that."

“I just highly doubt all of that.” Amanda clearly explains that it doesn’t make any sense that Raffaele would have done such a thing. It would be impossible, and preposterous. Barbie, and others, turned it on it’s head, making it sound like an accusation of Raffaele. It served her purpose, and that purpose evidently wasn’t the truth.

Finally, Barbie refers to “several accounts” that Amanda gave, apparently  expanding her interrogation without a lawyer or translator into multiple events. But, not to sink to this same level, Barbie gives only one account. When she makes an error, even a specific, indisputable error like this one, she never seems to do anything to correct it. She has apparently never issued a retraction, correction, or clarification for a single one of her many reporting errors on this case.

A Free Press

These appalling distortions are sad, unfortunate, but, hey, the cost of doing business in a free society with a free press. Right? Perhaps, but, here’s the thing. The jury in this trial was not sequestered, they were free to read every piece of trash published. They had lots of time to do so, since the trial met, at most, two days a week.

The Italian press, working with an ample stream of leaked material gave them plenty of trash to read. Here’s an example from the Italian newspaper, The Republic, just five days after the murder.

“Amanda is a liar. For four days, she never stopped lying. And perhaps she will continue for the next few hours. At least in part. The morning the corpse of Meredith was discovered, she is "surprised" to see neighbors and police while she's "shocked" going back into the house to "discover" what happened there in her absence.

All of this was stated as fact. Amanda was labeled a “liar” just five days after the murder, making “innocent until proven guilty” seem like a quaint relic of the past. Here are some article titles from the Italian press in the days after the murder, to give a flavor for how the Italian media lottery treated Amanda Knox.

“Amanda wanted only sex"

“Amanda’s DNA on the Crime Knife” ("It's the weapon that killed Meredith,")

It has been claimed that the judges and jurors in this case were somehow immune to influence, untainted by the media, as if they weren’t human beings, and didn’t really pay attention to what they read and heard. It has been said that they were “professionals” who could rule without bias. Yet 6 out of 8 of them were ordinary citizens, not professionals, and the pattern of rulings of the professional judges has been one of consistent prejudice against Amanda and Raffaele.

It is a fundamentally different system of “justice” and a fundamentally unfair one, when the prosecutors, polizia, judges, jury, press, and stone-hurling townsfolk, are all part of the same tightly knit, freely communicating , justice inflicting community. But lest we in America feel superior, we must remember that we had something similar for many years. We called them “lynch mobs.”

The Media Mantra of Guilt

A “mantra” is a sound, word, or phrase that is recited to accomplish a transformation. Usually the change is of a spiritual nature, but here the media mantras have been recited for less lofty purposes.

Many of the public’s misconceptions about this case come from reports that, while incorrect, have been repeated over, and over again. These reports, like a spiritual mantra gone terribly wrong, have transformed two innocent young people into murderous demons. An example of this is the absolutely wrong report that Amanda  nonchalantly took a shower in a bathroom awash in blood the morning after the murder.

Here’s a mainstream media report from Vanity Fair, May 12, 2008.

“She had found the bathroom she shared with Meredith smeared with so much blood it looked as though a butcher had attempted washing up and then given up the task. Amanda was puzzled. ‘It seemed a bit strange to me for the simple reason that all us girls are pretty clean and neat, and we clean up the bathroom,’ she later reflected.”

It sounds terrible. Amanda  blissfully showered amid a vast sea of blood, a scene right out of The Shining. This has been repeated in article after article. It is nonsense. It is a kind of “mashup” that combines Amanda’s reflection on the tiny amount of blood that she actually saw, with a photograph of the bathroom when it was coated with a pink, protein visualization tool days later. In actual fact, when Amanda went to use the shower she shared with Meredith there was only a small amount of blood in the bathroom. It was almost entirely on the bathmat , where Rudy left his footprints, and a small amount he left smeared on a faucet handle. The actual scene was only mildly concerning, exactly as she described.

It’s just one example, but this single distortion, repeated many times in many venues, was enough to convince countless people that Amanda Knox must be guilty. Yet the truth might still have won out, and Amanda might now be free, or at least widely understood to be innocent, if that were all there was. But this was just one distortion among the many mantras of guilt recited. The media also reported a “cleanup” that did not happen, performed with bleach that was never purchased. It reported that Amanda was sighted with Rudy, which never happened. It said that she engaged in lurid talk with Raffaele, somehow overheard in English by a clerk who spoke only Italian, while buying sexy lingerie. The simple fact that she needed clean underwear after being kept out of her apartment for three days was not as compelling a story. 

But the most devastating distortion of all has been the endless repetition in the media of the mantra-sound bite “the knife had Amanda’s DNA on the handle, and Meredith’s on the blade.” This phrase has about as much probative value to the case as the phrase “drill, baby drill” has to a viable energy policy. First recited menacingly to Amanda by the “Capo” in Capanne prison even as he repeatedly hit on her, it was adopted by mainstream reporters and Nancy Grace alike.

A sound bite treatment of a complex technical issue, the simplistic phrase takes whole paragraphs to dispute it. Reporter after reporter has fallen for the temptation and hurled the stone, solemnly reciting the misleading, but dramatic sound bite, while ignoring the science that contradicts it.

We’ve discussed the real evidence about the knife in detail elsewhere, so, just briefly:

The knife was an ordinary kitchen knife from Raffaele’s kitchen drawer. Amanda used it for cooking. Her DNA on the handle has as much meaning as her DNA on the can opener in the same drawer. The knife did not match most of Meredith’s wounds, and neither did it match a knife-shaped blood stain at the scene. Tests showed that the knife didn’t have any blood on it. The vanishingly faint DNA profiles that appeared after exceeding the machine sensitivity limits were clearly from contamination during handling or processing. Simply put, “the knife” was not the murder weapon. It was a kitchen implement that should have been left with the can openers and spatulas.

Fifteen Minutes

Again, and again, and again, the winner of the Media Lottery has been soiled with lies, smears, and distortions that have no basis in fact. It has made for the daunting task of fighting an endless cavalcade of lurid smears with the powerful, but far less interesting weapon of the truth.

If the truth doesn’t work , even for Amanda, even for someone with family, friends, loved ones, and thousands of total strangers all pulling for her, who can it work for? How can it work for the many other “harmless, gentle soul, misplaced inside a jail,” in Bob Dylan’s words.  Have we reached the point in history where truth is no longer transcendent? Have we reached the point where all that matters is a lurid story?

Amanda  Knox is just one victim of the much broader phenomena of character assassination by the Media Lottery.  They have made millions of dollars by destroying her reputation and her life. The destruction wasn’t a senseless crime, it was driven by the profit motive.

These lies didn’t just happen on their own. They were twisted into shape from leaked information, or created from whole cloth. They were honed by experts for optimal shock and maximum sales, and smeared over the pages of both tabloid press and mainstream news by journalists, editors, and publishers. All of this was done by people. People who have sons and daughters of their own. People who should have known better.

Andy Warhol famously said “In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” We may now be coming to an age where everyone will be guilty for 15 minutes. And they will spend the rest of their lives trying to prove their innocence.

Thank you to the Amanda supporters who helped research this article.

Copyright, 2010  Mark C. Waterbury, Ph.D.

Seven Deadly Sins of the Knox/Sollecito Prosecution

The following is an update of a previously posted article on ScienceSpheres.com

“Sin creates an inclination to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts.”

The Catechism

We’ve talked about the scientific trees, DNA, Luminol, and the rest. Now let’s take a step back and look at the forest of the Knox/Sollecito prosecution. Although science can exist in a perfect void of human issues, the science in this case is shrouded in a forest of human intrigue that cannot be ignored. A strange, dark, and twisted forest, it is. 

The ordeal of prison and trial went on for nearly two years. Yet the real decision was made just a few days after the murder of Meredith Kercher. Head investigator Edgardo Giobbi determined, in his mind, the guilt of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito before he had even begun to acquire, let alone analyze any actual evidence.

He boasted of the feat on film. “We were able to establish guilt by closely observing the suspect’s psychological and behavioral reactions during the interrogations. We don't need to rely on other kinds of investigation as this method has enabled us to get to the guilty parties in a very quick time." This was achieved before he even heard of Rudy Guede. In fact, just hours after the murder, when he handed Amanda a pair of shoe covers, "As she put them on she swiveled her hips... my suspicions against her were raised.”

And, of course, these same investigators were confused by the meaning of Amanda’s enigmatic text message to Patrick Lumumba, “See you later.”  They thought it meant something like, “Let’s meet later tonight and commit a senseless, horrific crime.” It turned out Patrick had nothing to do with it. But despite this cluelessness, or perhaps because of it, deep psychological insight enabled them to perceive guilt in the complete absence of evidence. It might be called, a “thought crime.”

That is why,  two years later, even though there was still no evidence against Amanda and Raffaele, these investigators continued to fight for convictions. Their minds were made up, and they were not to be confused by mere facts.

That was the original Sin of the this murder investigation. The Sin of Pride, excessive belief in one's own abilities.

Next came the theory of the crime, a compelling story in which to wrap the guilt. This naturally revolved around a satanic sex orgy gone bad. Naturally to whom? To the prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini. There was no evidence of this. No prior history, no such discussions, no records. In fact, in the entire trial there has never been any testimony about this, nothing ever offered by the prosecution. Just leaks to the press, who continue to parrot phrases like, “sex orgy gone bad.” And just young people who, shockingly, have had sex. And one was an American. You know how they are, and a beautiful one at that.

All of that, and a coincidence of date, the day after Halloween, along with a helpful suggestion from a blogger who channels a dead person to reveal a Satan worshipping Masonic sex cult (I’m not making this up) was enough for Mignini. In his pious mind, he envisioned the same lurid evil he had confronted before, in the Monster of Florence case. With much the same result, another tremendous injustice, perpetrated by Mignini himself.

That was the second deadly Sin of this investigation. The sin of Lust, an unnatural obsession with carnal desire.

In the interrogation of Amanda Knox, the result was preordained, the only question was how long would it take, how much pressure it would require, to put the words into her mouth to seal her fate. No matter how many times Amanda said she didn’t know, that she had no idea who had done this thing, they told her that she did, and that she’d spend 30 years in prison if she didn’t say what they wanted her to say. Day after day they brought her in. Forty some hours without a lawyer, without a good night’s sleep, without an interpreter, interrogating her in a language she barely knew. How long would you hold up?

They asked her to envision the murder, asked her to picture it in her mind. They brought Patrick into it. Why, she had sent him that incriminating text message, “See you later.”  They told her that Raffaele no longer supported her when she said that she was with him that night. Suspects must always tell the truth, over and over again, without fail or variation. Interrogators are under no such restrictions. 

And so she broke, and told them what they were demanding to hear. As soon as she possibly could, she wrote that while she had said such things, they weren’t to be relied upon, “But I've said this many times so as to make myself clear: these things seem unreal to me, like a dream...”  But, for the prosecutors, hey, close enough. They had her cold. The press forever after has called this her “confession” or “false confession.”  More on the press in a future article.

What she really said in the middle of the night, what really happened, what coercion occurred, we may never know, because the prosecution will not release the recordings.

And so they committed the third Sin, Wrath, the emotion of the falsely righteous”  “ which can manifest as vehement denial of the truth.”

Witholding evidence from the defense has been a powerful, ongoing tactic of the prosecution. You can’t refute the data if you can’t analyze it. You can’t analyze the data if you don’t have it. The prosecution was finally forced by the judges to release information they had previously withheld on July 30, 2009, more than a year and a half after it was gathered. But their hoarding continues. Several critical pieces of information remain under wraps. These include:

1. The recording of Amanda’s interrogation. The Polizia recorded everything. Phone calls, conversations, chats. It is not credible that Amanda’s interrogation was not recorded. Yet the recordings have been conspicuous by their absence. This was either incompetence for not recording, incompetence for losing the recordings, or, far more likely, the prosecution is withholding evidence that looks bad for them.

2. The dates that DNA profiles were performed. The Knife (that doesn’t match the wounds) was collected from Raffaele’s kitchen drawer after most of the DNA containing evidence was gathered from the apartment. It is extremely probable then, that Meredith’s blood and DNA were analyzed in the days immediately before the knife DNA testing. If so, that would provide strong additional evidence that the low copy number knife result was from contamination. The Knife would have been tested in a lab environment suffused with Meredith’s DNA. Those dates remain hoarded by Stefanoni and the prosecution.

3. Results of blood tests from Luminol reactive sites. Luminol glows are only “presumptive” of blood, and are certainly not conclusive. The next step when a glow is seen is to swab the area and use a test that is specific for blood. It was never credible that these simple tests were not done. In fact, they were performed, but were withheld, apparently because they didn’t look good for the prosecution. As Sara Gino stated "We were not told that, first of all, the prints were treated with a substance which should have indicated whether they were blood, and the result was very uncertain."

These, and other acts comprise the fourth Sin, Greed, or Hoarding of materials or objects, by means of trickery, or manipulation of authority.

In my last article, Methods of the Polizia PseudoScientifica, I made the statement, “These people mostly know what they are doing.” That was an exaggeration, for which I apologize. In fact, if you consider the drumbeat of incompetent performance they have compiled, it is clear that they only rarely know what they are doing. And those rare times are mostly when they are distorting the evidence.

1. There have been many failures in the forensic effort. Three out of four critically important computer hard drives were destroyed by the Polizei “computer experts,” Amanda’s, Meredith’s, and one of Raffaele’s. The remaining critical computer drive, Raffaele’s laptop, was merely altered by being used by the police to surf the net, destroying evidence that could have proved Raffaele and Amanda’s alibi.

2. When a murder victim is found a fundamental procedure is measurement of body temperature and room temperature as a means of  indicating time of death. These measurements need to be taken as soon as possible for the most accurate information. Every competent investigator knows this. Meredith’s temperature was not measured until 1:00 AM the day after her body was found, more than 48 hours after her death and far too long to provide meaningful information.

From Meo Ponte, La Repubblica

Professor Giancarlo Umani Ronchi:"We were asked to determine time of death," he explains, "but they had already made outrageous mistakes." First, the failure to analyze the corpse by the coroner who arrived first at the scene.

3. A surveillance camera at a bank across the street from the apartment recorded all activity on the street, and would have seen the perpetrator coming and going. Unfortunately, the Polizei didn’t get around to accessing it until the recordings had been overwritten.

For these and other actions, the Polizei have committed the Sin of Sloth, the avoidance of work.

Patrizia Stefanoni had neither the proper equipment nor the proper laboratory to perform low copy number DNA profiling, but she did it anyway. There are only a few such laboratories in the world, as it is a very new, as yet unproven technique. Her own lab was not even certified to perform ordinary DNA profiling at the time these tests were performed. (LCN DNA Part II Link). The result was that she performed tests that do not conform to any standard, any where. Now she is withholding the information about when and how those tests were performed.

And so she committed the sin of Envy, the perception that someone else has something they are lacking.

What lies behind this prosecution? Some have said that Mignini actually thinks that Amanda and Raffaele are guilty. But to believe that it is so simple would be naive. Italy is the home of an idea called “dietrologia” “the science of what lies behind” that involves seeing the real truth behind the obvious facade. Preston and Mezi give a great background on this in Monster of Florence. “Dietrologia is the idea that the obvious thing cannot be the truth.”

And what is this dietrologist’s explanation of the motivation behind the prosecution?

It is Gluttony, in the form of relentless pursuit of money, position, and power. “The chief error about Gluttony is to think it only pertains to food.” Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

There are careers to be made, and careers that could be broken, in such an infamous case. There are multi-million dollar lawsuits, all hanging on a guilty verdict. Rudy, you see, has no money. 

And so we have a feast of innocents, gorged upon by a circle of gluttons. It is a large, and festive circle, with Mignini at it’s head. There is Patrick, hoping for his half million, and Maresca, who would bring his clients tens of millions, wanting for his cut. There are those hoping for career enhancement; Giobbi, Stefanoni, Comodi and the rest. And even the ordinary polizei, who drove the unlucky pair to prison for the first time, just days after the crime, with their car horns blaring in victory.

The gluttons have only to commit two young innocents to life in prison and they will have what they desire. They have tasted fame, and they desire more. They have money, but they want more. They have positions of power, but one can never have enough power.

Gluttons are never the ones to say, “Enough!” That word must come from higher powers. From the judge and jurors? From the Italian government? The Italian people, or press? Or, perhaps, from a power, higher still?