Amanda Knox's 4th trial: new tests do NOT find victim's DNA on knife.
The knife that police selected from Raffaele's kitchen drawer (because it looked so clean and shiny!) has once again not revealed any DNA or other physical trace of the murder victim, Meredith Kercher. This knife was too big to fit the victim's wounds and didn't match the outline of the actual murder weapon that was found on the bloody sheet, but the prosecution has claimed all along it was used in the murder -- probably because its handle had some of Amanda's DNA. (Because she used it to cook with when she stayed at Raffaele's house.)
Up till now, the trace of Amanda on the handle of the purported murder weapon was the only physical link between her and the murder, since the murder room itself didn't contain a single piece of evidence linked to Amanda -- no fingerprints, shoeprints, hair, fiber, or DNA. (Amanda's DNA was found elsewhere in the apartment, of course, because she lived there.) The murder room, however, was covered in blood; and dozens of pieces of evidence, including DNA on and inside Kercher's body, were linked to Rudy Guede, the burglar who was convicted of the murder and sexual assault in a separate trial.
This is Amanda's 4th trial. In the first, she was found guilty. In the appeal, she was found innocent (a category separate from "not guilty"
, after the judge appointed independent DNA experts to examine the evidence -- and she was then released from prison. The prosecution then appealed the innocent verdict to the High Court, who -- after conducting the third trial-- ruled that an additional appeals' trial had to take place -- her fourth trial overall. Among other things, the High Court ruled that the trial judge in the appeals trial hadn't sufficiently considered the sex-game-gone-wrong theory of the prosecution. Whatever is decided in the current trial, there will no doubt be at least one more trial, a 5th trial, because either the prosecution or the defense can appeal the result to the High Court. At that point the High Court could decide to accept whatever decision is made in the 4th trial -- or the Court could order a 6th trial. In theory, there is apparently no limit to the number of trials that could occur.
This is why, quite correctly, Amanda Knox is staying home, quietly going about her life as a student at the University of Washington. What a nightmare.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/amanda-knox-forensic-tests-find-victims-dna-knife/story?id=20738813
The next hearing in the trial is scheduled for Nov. 6 when the forensic police experts will report on their findings.
Their written conclusions were filed in the Florence court today. Italian news agency ANSA is reporting that the tests found the "presence of a extremely small quantity of genetic matter which could derive from one or more female profiles."
In earlier leaked reports, the test had previously determined that Knox's DNA was likely in the trace. But according to the forensic experts comparative tests "led to the exclusion of the presence of any genetic matter belonging to Meredith Kercher... on the DNA trace being tested."
The knife was retrieved by investigators from the kitchen of Knox's boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. Knox and Sollecito were both charged and convicted of killing Kercher in November 2007. They spent four years in prison before an appeals court threw out the conviction in 2011.
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