"They were doing unsound forensic techniques that lead to cross contamination. Their techniques were ... horrible," he said. "If you showed that video tape in an American court you would have lost most of your evidence."
1. Poor evidence collection procedures: dirty gloves, not changing footwear between rooms, loose hair, not using tweezers consistently, failure to process crime scene effectively and efficiently. Not only was the bra clasp not collected until 47 days later, it was then passed between agents with dirty gloves and placed back on the floor to be photographed.
2. Failure to collect half of the victim’s clothes that were physically removed from her body. It wasn’t only the bra clasp that was collected 47 days later. Meredith Kercher’s blue Adidas jacket with sleeves turned inside out from being pulled off of her, her socks with blood on the cuffs from being removed by her killer, bra clasp which had been photographed early on, shoes, tote bag the killer may have looked through and a brown leather purse with blood near the zipper had also not been collected. All of these items were left behind for 6 weeks uncollected until the Forensic Police went back to the cottage on Dec 18, 2007. Rudy Guede's DNA was later found on the purse and jacket."
SALEM NEWS; Wikipeda informs us that: "The Salem News (formerly the Salem Evening News) is a six-day (Monday through Saturday) afternoon daily newspaper serving southern Essex County, Massachusetts, USA. Although the paper is historically connected with the city of Salem, its offices are in nearby Beverly, Massachusetts. The newspaper is published by Eagle-Tribune Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Community Newspaper Holdings Inc."
SEE ILLUMINATING EARLIER ABC NEWS STORY: SEPTEMBER 2, 2010; FOLLOWING THE SALEM NEWS PIECE;
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"(ROME) - Retired FBI agent Steve Moore has spent hours watching the Amanda Knox crime scene video," the Salem News story published earlier today under the heading, "Retired FBI Agent Steve Moore calls Amanda Knox Forensics 'Horrible,' begins.
"His experience and expertise lead him to say this. ""They were doing unsound forensic techniques that lead to cross contamination. Their techniques were ... horrible," he said. "If you showed that video tape in an American court you would have lost most of your evidence," the story continues.
"1. Poor evidence collection procedures: dirty gloves, not changing footwear between rooms, loose hair, not using tweezers consistently, failure to process crime scene effectively and efficiently. Not only was the bra clasp not collected until 47 days later, it was then passed between agents with dirty gloves and placed back on the floor to be photographed.
2. Failure to collect half of the victim’s clothes that were physically removed from her body. It wasn’t only the bra clasp that was collected 47 days later. Meredith Kercher’s blue Adidas jacket with sleeves turned inside out from being pulled off of her, her socks with blood on the cuffs from being removed by her killer, bra clasp which had been photographed early on, shoes, tote bag the killer may have looked through and a brown leather purse with blood near the zipper had also not been collected. All of these items were left behind for 6 weeks uncollected until the Forensic Police went back to the cottage on Dec 18, 2007. Rudy Guede's DNA was later found on the purse and jacket.
3. Hazmat outfits. The Forensic Police were wearing the wrong gear. In Hazmat outfits the footwear cannot be changed between rooms as required.
4. Patrizia Stefanoni obfuscated the truth when she said she didn’t do a blood test on luminol footprints. She actually had performed a TMB test that got negative results. The FBI uses TMB and a negative result excludes the presence of blood.
5. Officer Gioia Brocci used collection swabs in the bathroom with wide wipes that would mix any DNA. She also incorrectly used both sides of the collection swabs.
6. Failure to test a potential semen stain found on the pillow underneath the victim’s hips."
The story can be found at:
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/july282011/knox-forensics-sw.php
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EARLIER ABC NEWS STORY; 2 SEPTEMBER, 2010;
Amanda Knox is Innocent of Brutal Murder, Retired FBI Agent Claims
FBI Agent Says Amanda Knox Is Innocent
By NIKKI BATTISTE and SARAH NETTER
Sept. 2, 2010
A former FBI agent who once believed Amanda Knox was guilty of murder now says he has no doubt that she is innocent.
"When Amanda Knox gets out, if she needs a roommate, I'll send my daughter over," retired FBI Special Agent Steve Moore told "Good Morning America." "The evidence is completely conclusive."
Moore, a 25-year FBI veteran who investigated murders around the world before retiring two years ago, has independently researched and analyzed her case for the past year while Knox waited for her appeal.
Knox, 22, has spent nearly three years in an Italian prison since her November 2007 arrest for the murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher. Kercher was found sexually assaulted and her throat slashed, her half naked body under a duvet in her bedroom.
Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted of murder last December after a nearly a year long trial. A third person, Ivory Coast drifter Rudy Guede, whose DNA was found at the crime scene ,was convicted of taking part in the homicide in an earlier trial.
At first, Moore said, he firmly believed Knox was guilty as charged.
"The police said she is. She was arrested," he said. "It just seemed that's the way it was."
Moore, who has never spoken to Knox's family or lawyers, said it was his wife who urged him to look into Knox's case, convinced she was innocent. In November, Moore obtained the crime scene video, autopsy photos and legal documents. He spent weeks poring through them.
His opinion, he said, quickly changed.
"I couldn't figure out why Amanda and Raffaele weren't eliminated on day one as suspects," he said. "I kept thinking the smoking gun would pop up -- and it didn't come. I didn't know why they were in jail."
Initially, Knox said she was at her boyfriend's house the night of the murder. She was arrested days later after an overnight interrogation in which she said she had a vision she was in the kitchen of the cottage she shared with Kercher the night of the murder and heard screams. She has claimed that she became confused and scared because she was bullied, even struck by her interrogators, and recanted the remarks soon after.
The investigation found none of Knox's DNA -- no hair, blood or fingerprints -- in the bedroom where Kercher was murdered.
Prosecutors allege that the murder weapon is a knife found at Sollecito's apartment with Knox's DNA on the handle and Kercher's on the blade.
Moore dismissed the knife evidence, pointing out that Knox often used it to cook. He also said Italian prosecutors were grasping at straws by pointing to what they say is evidence that Knox tried to wash off Kercher's blood in her own bathroom.
"There is no DNA evidence. What they're saying is that whoever killed Meredith cleaned up in Amanda's bathroom. That's all they say," Moore said. "They found Amanda's DNA in her own bathroom? Astounding."
Amanda Knox Awaits Appeal, Hopes for Freedom
Moore said he spent hours watching video of Italian police officials combing through the crime scene and was shocked at what he saw.
"They were doing unsound forensic techniques that lead to cross contamination. Their techniques were horrible," he said. "If you showed that video tape in American court you would have lost more of your evidence."
He also slammed Italian authorities for their initial interrogation of Knox, which he likened to tactics used by "third-world intelligence agencies."
He pointed to her being questioned for hours, from about 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. when she was exhausted.
"No food, no coffee, no bathroom breaks -- nothing," Moore said, adding that she was interrogated in Italian, which Knox did not speak fluently at the time. "She gave them a confused indictment of someone else … which she recanted after she got some food."
Knox's appeal is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 24. A new panel of two judges and six jurors from Perugia will reexamine Knox's case. A decision is expected by March.
Moore said he has no reason to believe he would be allowed to testify at the appeal or that Italian courts would be interested in anything an American had to say in her defense. But he's hoping Italian forensic experts convinced of Knox's evidence will pick up where he left off.
"The final court of appeal is going to be the press, the public," Moore said, charging that the public knows very little about how questionable the evidence against Knox really is.
In March, prosecutors filed an appeal seeking an even harsher sentence for Knox, who was ordered to serve 26 years in prison. The prosecutor is asking that she be sentenced to a life term. Knox's lawyers responded with an appeal in March, which asked for her conviction to be overturned.
Knox's appeal also called for an independent review of the DNA evidence, a request denied by a judge during her trial.
Knox's Third Birthday in Prison Marked By Singing, Crab Cakes
Knox has celebrated three birthdays, missed her college graduation and cut short her famous long locks while in prison. She passes time playing guitar at the prison mass, studying Italian and German and exercising during the one hour she can leave her cell.
"Amanda and I have now spent, her birthday and mine are a day apart, so we've spent the last three birthdays together," Knox's mother, Edda Mellas, told "Good Morning America." "We sing happy birthday for her. This year she got a lot of people. The guards and other inmates were singing to her."
But Mellas said the waiting is taking a toll on her daughter.
"The summer was hard, it's so hot [in the prison]. We tend to talk a lot about what she's doing to cope, but being locked up for a crime you didn't commit is devastating, it's almost unbearable, and she's having a tough time. But you know she's doing what she needs to do," she said.
Italian parliamentarian, Ricco Girlanda, who has said he is trying to soothe the diplomatic tensions that erupted during Knox's case, has visited Amanda in prison.
In more than 20 jailhouse conversations, Girland says Knox told him she one day hopes to adopt children and work as a writer. While Girlanda has not weighed in on Knox's guilt or innocence, he has penned a book about Knox to be released in October."
The ABC News story can be found at:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/amanda-knox-innocent-retired-fbi-agent-steve-moore/story?id=11541334
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
