To be clear, I'm not saying it's ninhydrin in the picture; I haven't seen a source for what the chemical they used is. I was simply stating that if the chemical is ninhydrin, then the picture absolutely does not demonstrate there there's a ton of cleaned up blood in the bathroom.

Also, it's this section of Massei that most argue is the reason Mignini (the original prosecutor) suddenly refuted his own experts and pushed the time of death back further than even 11 because this was a problem.

In reality we know that the killer was probably fumbling around with Meredith's phone at 10pm unless you believe she called her bank in England without dialing the country code.

It's also that particular call that probably caused Henry to say earlier in this thread that the TOD was before 10:13.

I dont think even the most ardent guilters say that's supposed to be blood. That picture is somewhat famous because the innocence side points to it as a factor in the media smear against Amanda leading up to the first trial. When it was released to the media it was one of those "How could she take a shower in that bathroom, she MUST be guilty" or w/e.

Because I didn't follow the case at that point I don't really know. I do know that I assumed they had to have been guilty until I started looking into it.

Oh I know, but I'm sure that is the substance that I read about. Don't know if it's accurate though.

Can't be luminol. To me, that color looks a lot like phenolphthalein, the indicator in a preliminary blood test called the Kastle-Meyer test. Kastle-Meyer, just like luminol works by having heme catalyzing the decay of hydrogen peroxide and indicating the in situ generation of oxygen with an indicator that gets oxidized and then either displays chemoluminescence (the blue glow of luminol) or changes its color, here from the colorless reduced form to the bright pink phenolphthalein.

The test is considered positive if that color change happens right away. That's what you see on CSI when Catherine dips a swap into a chemical, swipes the knife with it, and the swab turns pink right away. It's not the pink color that indicates blood, it's the speed it appears with (same with luminol, where only a fast oxidation will produce a glow). Even if there's no blood, phenolphthalein pink will eventually appear, due to oxidation by ambient air. That's why the agens for Kastle-Meyer has to be stored in brown bottles over Zinc powder, to prevent natural oxidation from ruining it. Wikipedia writes: "Waiting for periods over 30 seconds will result in most swabs turning pink naturally as they oxidize on their own in the air." I'm not sure about the 30 seconds, but i'd guess that after waiting an hour or so, all spots sprayed with Kastle-Meyer agens are pink.

So unless the photo of the bathroom was made less thatn 30 seconds after applying the agens, all it tells us is where the agens was sprayed on, not more. In particular, it tells us nothing about any blood traces that may or may not have been there.

Thanks, I think this is ringing a bell from what I've read and sounds exactly right. What we're seeing is the actual agent not what it found or what was there before.

In addition it refutes my own argument that it's showing something that would be inconsistent with cleaning so I certainly retract that notion here.

I'd still add that the blood in the bathroom that was Meredith's and the blood that was Amanda's is pretty good evidence it wasn't cleaned for four hours though.

Thanks for the clarification.

Interesting, thanks for the information. Again, no idea if that's the chemical that was used (anybody have any idea where there is a report describing this? Anyone?), but that's also a reasonable possibility. Like the CSI comparison as well.

Would be pretty sick if this was the chemical, they got no reaction except the normal one after 30 seconds, someone snapped the pic, then the media got ahold of it and shrieked "look at all the blood!"

But I have no idea in what context this photo was released, either. I just know it's been posted a couple of times in this thread to demonstrate that there's blood in the bathroom, which, without knowing what chemical it is, I reject as misleading. The swabs that were shown being collected and did test positive for Kercher's blood are the only places in the bathroom that I'm currently assuming have her blood.

In case anyone wants to read this section of the report:

I remember reading these types of comments somewhere and they are certainly compelling until you find out its not blood. However, I'm not aware if they were presented that way in court (doubtful) and assume it was just typical internet misinformation that can be disregarded.

There's a post about it at a "Knox is guilty" site and its referred to as Phenolphthalein in making a case against a pro knox video. Given they would most likely not inaccurately refer to this as Phenolphthalein in trying to disprove a pro-knox statement, it lends some level of credibility to that being the correct chemical. I'd still prefer to see a court document for final confirmation as well as when the pictures were taken in relation to the time the chemical was applied or simply what point the prosecution was trying to make by entering this picture into evidence.

Here's a quote from that blog post:

(the above quotes are toward the end of the article)

As this is essentially discussing criminal profiling rather than actual evidence, I remember that it was reported that Knox had written a series of short stories on MySpace, one of which involved the drugging and rape of a girl (I read that in the story the woman has her throat slit, but cant find any mention of it now) and another about a stalker.

We cant say if it was a preoccupation, fantasy or something else, but it shows that sexual violence was at least something that she was in some way conscious of. She had also made a highly inappropriate "joke" to a guy she had just met who was jewish, apparently laughing hysterically and loudly repeating "my people killed your people!" (her family has German heritage apparently).

If you can attach any profiling significance to this, I have no idea. Just something that I remember reading very early on in the case.

An early news report mentions the above here (the media coverage in general has been pretty appalling so if this turns out to be inaccurate/fake, I hope that someone will correct asap).

I agree that she seems dramatic, but Im not sure I agree re the rest. She seems to have been sexually confident and aggressive - intentionally inviting the attention of lots of guys (lol, not necessary in Italy, I know) - her flirting with guys instead of working is the reason that Lumumba was going to fire her - and having had quite a few one night stands - something that had started to annoy her house mates. She also had boyfriends (short term and one longer term if I remember correctly) before she went to Italy.

Sollecito seems to be the opposite. Shy, awkward and reserved. Had had one very brief (few days) relationship with a girl a while before but in terms of relationships/sexual encounters, very little else (maybe nothing else - cant remember). His hobbies have already been mentioned.

I have always considered Amanda to be the one most likely to be dominant in their relationship.

I want to make it clear that I only mention this as you both had started to essentially profile Knox and Sollecito. I do not consider the above to be anything other than possibly relevant/interesting from that point of view.

I dont believe that they (if we assume that it was them) can necessarily be considered "serial killer" type murderers. I usually avoid this kind of speculation as it is almost total conjecture, but my opinion is that the murder was the unplanned result of an irresponsible prank/intention to commit other less serious crimes against Meredith that escalated extremely quickly due to other factors such as drugs, jealousy, sexual rejection, etc... I am not really convinced that the above profiles are relevant in this case.

Im sure we will never know the reasons why what happened happened.

GJ. Now we'd just need to know how long after the chemical was applied the reaction showed up. Seems like if it was <30 sec. it would have been a very solid point for the prosecution. If it was >30 sec. and was used to be suggestive of blood when there was none, then that's pretty shady/sloppy work by the police and/or prosecution investigators.

Wonder why they didn't use luminol, though. They obviously had it it. Meh.

Yes it was a media thing.

Thank you for posting that entire section as I haven't read it in a long time. What's not included there is that the defense in it's appeal submission argues that Massei essentially gets this wrong and that Curatolo repeated specifically many times he saw them there until almost midnight. Because we don't have the transcript it's hard to make an informed opinion.

Either way it's pretty obvious Hellman didn't find him credible at all. I think messed up dates at the appeal and was just generally unreliable and they also found that the buses were probably not running.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=13227541

The point I was trying to make about the guilt side in this is that they don't ever seem to want to actually put the puzzle pieces together to make a puzzle. They just want to make a big pile of circumstantial evidence and say "Look guilt!"

And before Henry comes in here and argues Massei was right and that I'm misstating the record and that Curatolo saw them until 11 or 11:30 when I saw close to midnight, guess what it still doesn't matter and I'd make the same point that because the killer was fumbling with the phone at 10 we know she was probably dead. Henry knows this too because he said it on page 18.

At the end of the day Curatolo didn't see them at all and the defense argued that he'd been a witness in at least two other trials I believe.

Unless there's some actual evidence to back it up, I'm not comfortable trusting a lot of the stuff from ANY of the media outlets, given how wildly the story appears to have been distorted on both sides.

You are correct that pointing to a lack of previous criminal/violent behavior is circumstantial, but when it's present that's circumstantial evidence for the propensity/ability to commit violence, and when it's absent that's circumstantial evidence that the individual is less likely to be violent (again, not impossible, but much more improbable). While anyone can be violent under the right circumstances, I would think it would be extremely rare for a women to help murder another woman with a knife, in conjunction with two men she hadn't know for that long, without some history of violence, criminal behavior, or serious mental health issues. Of all the studies they've done of convicted violent felons trying to determine if they can predict which ones will reoffend, looking at history of abuse, drug usage, socioeconomic status, mental health history, etcetera, the best predictor of future violence is...past violence.

If this is what happened, it's almost unprecedented in both CJ and psychology circles. She would almost certainly have needed to form an extremely intense relationship with the boyfriend, far beyond the typical new romance infatuation.

I suspect we'll never know. Fascinating stuff, though.

Here is all her Myspace stuff. The story you're talking about is called Baby Brother I think.

http://patrishka.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/amanda-knox/