Lies Our Mothers Told Us

After reading extracts from the judge’s report on the sentencing of Rudy Guede for his role in the murder of Meredith Kercher, I was deeply saddened and profoundly shocked by the brutal and sadistic way in which Meredith was attacked, tortured, killed and left to die. These kinds of reports never make for particularly pleasant reading and this was no exception. I was pleased to see that the judge made a point of stating that he was not particularly interested in the why’s and how’s of the threesomes deadly meeting but instead started from the fairly cast iron assumption that all three were present in the room at the time of the murder.

When Guede opted for a fast-track trial I doubt it surprised many and it certainly didn’t surprise me. Despite his almost pathological inability to tell the truth and his “colossal accumulation of contradictions and attempts to throw investigators off the track”, Guede played a very smart card indeed; he refused to be a scapegoat. I must admit I was surprised he got 30 years then came to the conclusion that such a harsh sentence (and attempting to reduce it) would only serve to increase his chances of talking about what happened that night.

Reading the judges report one can only come to the conclusion that Rudy Guede took part in a shocking and abhorrent crime then despite the fact there was ample opportunity for Meredith to be saved he walked (or rather ran) away without so much as a second thought. Guede has shown no remorse for his despicable actions that night and the sentence handed down by the judge firmly reflects this.

Guede strikes me as a particularly selfish individual prone to acting on impulse and the sort of person that had rather gotten used to doing whatever he wanted to do, whenever he felt like doing it. If Guede was capable of telling the truth, which is about as likely as me becoming the next pope, he may well get some sort of deal or even a better chance of parole. It really would be in his best interest to override the “I don’t wanna!” protective mechanism currently governing his psyche and start talking from the unique vantage point of being the only person in the house that night that has nothing left to lose. 30 years is a long time to sit and ponder Rudy and believe me the prosecution can and will convict Knox and Sollecito with or without your help.

Amanda Knox and her camp have twice made the mistake of pointing the finger of blame at what could generally be argued as a stereotypical black, male perpetrator. It’s backfired. Amanda accused Patrick Lumumba of attacking and killing Meredith in a false statement, Lumumba was in his bar at the time of the murder and is currently suing her for slander. Both defendants’ lawyers have repeatedly blamed Rudy Guede for the murder. The so called lone wolf theory suggests Guede had the motivation or capability to scale a very high wall, smash a window and climb through without cutting himself in order to rape and kill Meredith Kercher. I’m sure this theory has been refuted by virtually all the evidence available so far yet the defence for both Knox and Sollecito still seem to think it’s a valid argument.

Starting with the assumption that everything Guede has said about the reasons he went to the cottage that night is a great big whopping lie, a few questions about the lone wolf theory remain:

1.    Why would Guede go to the house on his own? He had no reason to go there alone. Despite what many people think a person with no real history of sexual assault or violence doesn’t just wake up one day and ‘decide to rape and kill someone’. This kind of attack is usually an escalation of previous offences, planned in advance and much more carefully executed than Meredith’s murder was. The perpetrator usually has some kind of juvenile record for indecent exposure, violence or sexual assault and as far as we know Guede had none of these. This profile of Guede is totally wrong he’s not a killer he’s a coward, yet I believe the presence of the other two made him do something he’d probably be unlikely to do on his own.

2.    If he had never met Meredith in person or had seen her in a bar how would he know where to find her and that she would be alone? If the lone wolf theory can possibly hold water the jury would have to be convinced that Guede intended to rape and kill Meredith before he got to the cottage. Guede would not have gone to the house to rape and kill Meredith unless he was sure she would be alone. Even if Meredith had met Guede in a bar in Perugia she probably wouldn’t have told him where she lived (it’s been stated that Guede often put women off with his overly pushy attitude). Guede doesn’t strike me as a stalker type, again the profile is wrong. I’m sure there were plenty of other young ladies in Perugia whom he would have liked to have sex with. If we assume that Guede never knew Amanda we would also have to make the assumption that Guede had been stalking Meredith, knowing her place of residence and knowing whether or not she would be home alone would indicate that he had been following her. This seems very unlikely. A more likely scenario seems to be that Guede knew Amanda, knew where Amanda lived and knew that Meredith lived with her. Guede had also been told by Amanda that she was at home with Meredith. Guede arrived to collect some money for drugs that Amanda owed him. The rest they say is history.

3.    If Amanda wasn’t there and he was so intent on raping and killing Meredith why not just ring the doorbell and pounce as soon as she opened the door? Why break in through a window so high off the ground when several other points of entry would have been much easier and less messy? Rudy might be a few bricks short of a wall but he’s not a blithering idiot.

4.    If Guede really did commit the crime alone why were defensive knife wounds found on the victims hands? Did Guede have enough hands/physical strength to hold the victim down, hold a knife to and slash her throat and assault her sexually? Almost certainly not and remember Guede would have been struggling with a strong and brave young woman, fighting for her life the other two simply had to have been there.

The lone wolf theory really has a lot of gaping holes in it, making cast iron assumptions about Rudy Guede that are not supported by any theory or research that we have about the nature of these crimes and the sorts of people that commit them. The lone wolf theory might possibly hold water if Knox and Sollecito had been arrested after Guede, however the police had cottoned on the strange behaviour of Knox and Sollecito long before they caught Guede implying that they thought there was more than one person involved from the start. This really is a stupid theory.

I suppose it is what we have come to expect from Amanda and the marching band of narcissistic defiance that follows her, playing their own dreadful tune and continuing to insult and degrade the memory of Meredith Kercher.

“Some of these people are fairly persuasive, they can manipulate, they’re very charming, some of them even charismatic. And a lot of people, they like them, they think they’re kind of fun to be around, but it takes a long time before you can figure out that something is really amiss here.” Dr Robert Hare.

I clearly remember watching the televised broadcast of Karen Matthews pleading for the safe return of her daughter Shannon. Even then, something about her behaviour immediately struck me as profoundly odd. For those who aren’t familiar with the case let me fill you in on a few details. Nine year old Shannon Matthews disappeared on 19th February 2008 after leaving her school in Dewsbury, Yorkshire.

The last reported sighting of Shannon was at 3.10pm outside Westmoor Junior School. Karen Matthews, Shannon’s mother appeared on television and made several emotional pleas for her daughters’ safe return. Throughout the 24 day ordeal Karen Matthews friends and family stood by her and left no stone unturned in their search for little Shannon. The reward for any information leading to her safe return quickly reached £20,000 later rising to £50,000. The UK media was impressed with the solidarity of this small community taking care of a young mother in deep distress. The public had begun to fear the worst when a miracle happened.

Shannon was found alive by the police on the 14 March 2008 concealed in a divan bed not too far from her home. A 39 year old man, Michael Donovan was arrested at the scene. The news spread throughout the community and the country like wildfire. Karen Matthews was stunned and emotional.

On Friday 24th January 2009 Karen Matthews (along with Donovan) was sentenced to eight years in prison for orchestrating what the judge called a “despicable and inconceivable” kidnap plot to claim the reward money offered for information leading to the safe return of her daughter. Apparently Karen was tired of being broke and decided to plot a kidnap and claim the reward money. The police finally put two and two together and realised that throughout the ordeal Karen had shown remarkably little interest in the safety and wellbeing of her daughter, preferring instead to soak up the attention (and eventually she hoped, the reward money) she received from the national press.

When I say ‘psychopath’, what do you think of? Maybe a serial killer or a violent rapist? You’d probably be right, most serial killers are psychopaths, but all too often I’ve seen the words serial killer and psychopath used interchangeably. Dr Robert Hare is a world renowned expert on the psychopath (he identified it) and to date has devoted his entire career to understanding psychopathy.

A psychopath is unable to feel guilt, remorse or emotion. Hare has estimated that approximately 1% of the general population is psychopathic to some degree, even if they’ve committed no crime. Psychopaths are unable to feel emotion and any sense of shame or responsibility is totally lost on them. Sound dangerous? You’d be right about that! In his psychopathy checklist (PCL) and its revised edition (PCL-R) Hare puts forward a reliable diagnostic tool for identifying psychopaths. The list of characteristics includes:

A grandiose sense of self-worth, superficial charm, criminal versatility, impulse control problems, irresponsibility, inability to tolerate boredom, narcissism, pathological lying, shallow affect, deceitful, manipulative, lack of empathy, lack of remorse, a sense of extreme entitlement, lack of or diminished levels of anxiety/nervousness and other emotions, promiscuous sexual behaviour, sexually deviant lifestyle, poor judgment, failure to learn from experience, lack of personal insight, failure to follow any life plan, abuse of drugs including alcohol and an inability to distinguish right from wrong.

I should point out at this stage that the list above is in no way exhaustive and is no substitute for the PCL-R being administered by a qualified and trained professional however I have read extensively on Hare’s research (I am myself a psychologist) and cannot help but come to a few conclusions of my own from time to time. Let’s call it a hunch and (hopefully) without seeming rude or in the least bit arrogant my hunches have turned out to be correct or more than one occasion.

The truth is I’ve always thought there was something amiss with Amanda Knox and I had a similar feeling when I first saw Karen Matthews’s emotional pleas on the TV, the same monotone sound bites, cut and paste facial expressions with crocodile tears in all the right places yet no depth of character, nothing, zip, nada, the lights are on but nobody is home. I think it’s fair to say I’m not alone in thinking that Amanda’s observed behaviour has been ‘odd’ to say the least. Being dubbed ‘the face of an angel with ice cold eyes’ rather sums it up don’t you think?

I’ve noticed that the Friends of Amanda website has stepped up a gear recently and the PR campaign has increased momentum, Candace Dempsey continues to delude herself that we are still dealing with a ‘normal’ young woman here instead of a girl that is obviously a skilled manipulator. Amanda is supposed to look nice, she is wholesome, smart, a superficially charming all-American girl that wouldn’t hurt a fly but don’t be fooled, stereotyping prevents us from seeing the female as a potentially violent individual. A lot of people have gotten away with terrible things because they simply didn’t ‘look like the sort of person that would do that kind of thing’.

Research has shown that female perpetrators can be just as violent as male perpetrators but are much more likely to coerce a male accomplice into helping commit a crime. If caught female perpetrators often protect themselves with the old “she couldn’t possibly be guilty women don’t do that sort of thing” defence which exactly the tactic which is failing for Amanda Knox. Anybody with half a brain can see that the evidence points to her being there on the night of the murder if not the one who made the fatal knife wound that killed Meredith.

I fear the PR campaign will be the ultimate blockade to the truth in this case and any hope the public had of hearing the truth from Amanda’s own mouth has rapidly faded with every day of Dempsey’s crusade. Amanda will never talk. She has too much to lose and a whole lot to gain by keeping everyone in the dark.

After all the speculation and accusations, the trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for their part in the murder and sexual assault of Meredith Kercher officially got underway on 16th January in Perugia Italy. The court ruled that the trial could held in the open but specified that certain more sensitive parts would remain behind closed doors. Though this may be a blow for the Kercher family who, by appealing to the judge for the ruling to be held away from the prying eyes of the world media hoped to preserve what little dignity for Meredith there was left, one American writer was getting ready to line her pockets.

I am speaking of the ‘award winning’ Seattle PI blogger Candace Dempsey.

Dempsey has covered the Kercher case throughout and has been a front runner in the unashamed Amanda Knox PR campaign from the beginning. Though I am a firm believer in the principle that a defendant should be innocent until proven guilty I am also highly sceptical of a ‘journalist’ so absolutely convinced that her version of events is beyond question that she will readily take the word of a defendant that has repeatedly lied as gospel. Now with the trial underway and the (almost certainly guilty) verdicts due sometime in the summer, Candace has firmly cemented herself on my s**t-list by plugging an upcoming book about Amanda Knox the murder of Meredith Kercher.

The book titled ‘Murder in Italy: The Story Behind the Murder of Meredith Kercher, the Case Against Amanda Knox and the Strange World of an Italian College Town’ will be published some time after the trial is over. I’m sure the Kercher family are delighted that a glorified food critic will be making money from the tragic loss of their daughter Meredith. Despite reading like the title of an over ambitious media studies project I’m sure the book will be a bestseller and what a wonderfully articulate, sensitive and well researched book it will be, judging from what Dempsey has to say about it, in her own words:

“The person whose death it is is [sic] the most important person in the mystery.”

Deep, really deep.

Who do you think will write the foreword? My money is on Frank Sfarzo over at Perugia Shock who has done an apparent U turn from interesting , objective reporting in favour of supporting the Amanda PR campaign (how much did they pay him for that I wonder).The Kercher family meanwhile are remaining calm, focused and determinedly continuing with their campaign to see justice for Meredith. Meanwhile the defendants, their lawyers and the American ‘experts’ supporting Amanda and her expensive PR campaign are continuing to scrag with the Italian judicial system.

How long will it be before Amanda Knox appears on the front page of American Vogue? Amanda Knox is on trial for murder and Amanda Knox will probably be found guilty considering the enormity of the evidence against her. Instead of supporting the Kercher family the world media has granted one defendant celebrity status. Deeply vulgar.

Being a woman, being American, being pretty, smart, kind or generous really has nothing to do with it and haphazardly suggesting that Amanda knows nothing about what happened that night is both disrespectful to the family of the victim and sloppy reporting. Why does it not surprise me? It’s easy to lie.

The Amanda Show continues……

True Justice for Meredith Kercher

I first saw Meredith Kercher’s face on the front page of the Daily Mail newspaper on the 3rd November 2007.  Meredith was a 21 year old British student from Coulsdon, South London who was studying at Leeds University and had travelled to Perugia, Italy to study at its prestigious School for Foreigners. She was a pretty and popular student who had recently celebrated Halloween in Perugia and had visited her friend’s apartment for Pizza and a movie on the night of 1st November 2007. The following morning Meredith’s body was found on the floor of her bedroom, covered in blood and concealed by a duvet. She had been brutally sexually assaulted, tortured and her throat savagely cut. What’s more the nature of the fatal wound had ensured poor Meredith had died a slow and agonising death, drowning in her own blood.

The world was stunned. Who could commit such a heinous crime? Forums sprang up, journalists speculated and whispers began circulating that Meredith had been killed for refusing to take part in a sexual orgy. Three suspects were initially identified and arrested Congolese bar owner Patrick Lumumba and a young couple: Italian national Raffaele Sollecito and Meredith’s 21 year old American housemate Amanda Knox. Lumumba was quickly cleared as a suspect when a witness came forward and provided him with an air-tight alibi. As evidence pointed to a third person in the house that night, another suspect Rudy Guede was quickly identified and captured in Germany when police tracked him using his Facebook account. DNA and forensic evidence placed all three suspects at the scene of the crime. Guede opted for a ‘Fast-Track’ trial fearing a plot against him from Knox and Sollecito’s defence lawyer, was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. After what feels like a lifetime of pre-court hearings, appeals, accusations and defence campaigns, Knox and Sollecito will be tried for the murder of Meredith Kercher on the 16th January 2009.

The whole world will be watching. Forums will come alive with the details of the alleged 10,000 page dossier of evidence and the whole world may finally know what really happened to Meredith Kercher. The fantastic website True Justice for Meredith Kercher (link in the side bar) has been the most up to date, factually correct useful source of information about any crime investigation that I have ever come across. I have found the posts riveting, relevant, insightful and above all respectful. Most journalists could do a lot worse that use it as there absolute grounding on the case and maybe they could learn how to ensure they remained impartial at all times whilst ensuring the memory of this beautiful young woman and her family is honoured with respect and dignity. Amanda Knox is on trial and is still innocent until proven guilty. Nobody needs to read her diary. Nobody needs to give her any more attention than she has already received.

Even though I never knew Meredith, even though I never will know her, eat pizza with her, go shopping or have a drink with her. I will always know that Meredith was a very special young woman indeed. A young woman that endured a horrific death and one who deserves to be remembered.

Courtesy of The Sun

( Meredith Kercher 1986 – 2007)