Talk:Murder of Meredith Kercher/Archive 8

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Anglo-Indian ethnicity doubtful - citation please

An editor insists on giving Meredith's ethnicity as Anglo-Indian. There is no evidence to support that claim. The citation Meredith's mother tells court of grief says only that her mother was born in India. We don't know if she is Indian etnicity, let alone Anglo-Indian.

The Anglo-Indian article says

These are people whose geneology dates back to the British India, and who became a distinct ethnic group, neither truly Indian nor truly British, but tend to regard themselves as more British than Indian.

If in fact Arline Kercher is an Indian national, that would certainly make Meredith Eurasian, but it would not give her Anglo-Indian ethnicity unless Arline is Anglo-Indian. We have no evidence whatever to support that idea: the probability is tiny that it could be true by chance.

The line should be deleted from the info-box. --Red King (talk) 20:06, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The Anglo-Indian article seems very unclear to me. In any event, I don't think it is a commonly used term for British people of Indian descent. I would suppose something like "mixed Indian and white British" might be correct for Kercher. --FormerIP (talk) 20:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Mother is an immigrant from India to the UK, and clearly full Indian; I have changed it to half-British, half-Indian. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 20:30, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Citation please. The present citation merely says that she was born in India. Perhaps they have a reason for saying that she is not Indian? --Red King (talk) 20:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Would a picture of her be vaild as a source? She's Indian. --FormerIP (talk) 20:42, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
They probably say she was born in India rather than is Indian due to her having British citizenship. Some people define by extraction, others by citizenship; born in India is definitely correct. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 20:51, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

"Half-British, half-Indian" is like something from a Victorian trial. It is not an ethnicity. Nobody has produced a reason why that line should remain. --Red King (talk) 20:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

It is the best ethnicity description of her that can be given, unless someone knows a word for that mixture (it seems Anglo-Indian is not applicable due to the mixing taking place only in the UK, not in India). Many people have asked what her ethnicity is, it was debated on the archive. In any case, it is relevant, sourced biographical info. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 21:10, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Ethnicity is a terribly sensitive subject. You can't just make up something that you think is "is the best ethnicity description of her that can be given, unless someone knows a word for that mixture". For heaven's sake, find some reliable citations for her ethnicity or leave it out! Bluewave (talk) 21:50, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Mother is from India and looks Indian; in absence of evidence of her having any other ancestry, she's Indian. If her ancestry were Chinese or African, she would look very different. The ref is a Times article, a very reliable source. There are plenty of pics of both parents and all three siblings on various articles. Why doubt that a person born in India, who looks Indian, and is never described as being of any other origin, is anything other than Indian? If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 22:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Britain has official classifications for ethnicity (Classification of ethnicity in the United Kingdom), according to which Meredith would be "mixed white and Asian". I think it would be more appropriate to use this than any particular wording from a source. I tend to think this is not of crucial importance to the article, but I'm not sure it is so irrelvant as to say there is any reason why it should not be in there. --FormerIP (talk) 22:10, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm...but "Asian" normally means SE Asian in the US... --FormerIP (talk) 22:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
The origins of the people involved have been mentioned many times in the mainstream media; it is relevant. Eurasian is correct, but has much a more broad definition. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 22:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia defines an ethnic group as "a group of humans whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or assumed". In the UK, official records seem to recognise this and, for example, in the censuses, people select the ethnicity that they believe best applies to them. We should not be trying to make up ethnicities without good evidence. "Eurasian" is not officially recognised as an ethnicity in the UK, nor is "Half-white British, half-Indian". Bluewave (talk) 12:03, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
White British and Indian are both recognised ethnicities. We know she has one parent from each of those; half-white British, half-Indian correctly describes her ethnicity. Some people who have that ancestry would describe themselves as half-white British, half-Indian, so I don't see a problem in describing her with that factual description. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 12:44, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Just to clarify: use of the word Asian in the US is not limited to individuals of SE Asian descent, as noted in the Wikipedia entry. Also, individuals of SE Asian descent in the US are often referred to as Indian, as documented in that entry. This can be confusing, as individuals of Native American descent are also referred to as "Indian" or American Indian. Individuals of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, etc. descent are commonly referred to as "Asian." (See the Tiger Woods Wikipedia entry for an example). Christaltips (talk) 16:55, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Excellent point regarding the sensitivity of ethnicity. It might be least objectionable to note only place of birth and citizenship for everyone, if deemed important. Christaltips (talk) 16:55, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
The infobox now links to India instead of Indian, removing the ambiguity of Amerindian v Asian Indian. Removing info because some people may be sensitive about factual information is not what an encyclopedia should do. Thousands of Wikipedia biographies mention the subject's ethnicity - imagine removing Tiger Woods' or Barack Obama's ethnicities from their articles! Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 17:13, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Barack Obama is actually a great example of what I'm banging on about. His article describes his ethnicity as "African American", presumably because that is the "group of humans that he identifies with, through a common heritage". Lkjhgfdsa's logic would have him down as something like "half white, half black Kenyan". We don't know which group of humans Meredith Kercher identified with, through a common heritage, unless there is a reliable source. Bluewave (talk) 18:44, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
It could quite legitimately be both. Are you saying that if we don't have a person's feelings about their ethnicity from the horses mouth then they are of no or indeterminate ethnicity? Like a sort of Schrodinger's cat -type principle, I suppose. --FormerIP (talk) 19:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Many multiracial people identify with more than one ethnicity. Her ethnicity is known, so should be stated in the place in her infobox that is for that purpose. What she may or may not have identified as is irrelevant. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 19:09, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Personally I think the Ethnicity part of the info box should not be there at all - ever. rturus (talk) 19:32, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

It's a mess - away with it! Rothorpe (talk) 19:46, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
What you're saying is merely WP:IDONTLIKEIT, you haven't given a genuine reason to remove a reliably sourced piece of info from its correct place in the infobox. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 20:35, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Ugh! Rothorpe (talk) 23:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
No, it has not been reliably sourced, becuase it is blatantly untrue. The Ethnicity line in the template should not be used in this case. Would anyone who thinks it should, please read Ethnic group, which is where Ethnicity redirects. There is no evidence to suggest that Kerchner family identify with any ethnic group. To give any data here is SP:Original research --Red King (talk) 16:12, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
We don't need her parents to self-identify in order to state what her ethnicity was. Everyone has an ethnicity, regardless of whether or not they, or their parents, self-identify. It is not incorrect to state her ethnicity based on her parents' ethnicity, which we do know, unless you're saying that Indian isn't an ethnicity. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 20:42, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
So far we've had "half-white British, half-Indian", "Anglo-Indian" and "Eurasian". These all mean different things and at least one of them is not an Ethnicity. So, logically, at least two of these are wrong! So, which one, if any, is right and on what basis is it deemed to be right? If my life depended on stating the correct ethnicity, I would select a different one from any of these three. However, I am not going to edit the article in favour of my choice unless I find a citation to support it. I suggest the proponents of other options do the same. Bluewave (talk) 20:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
I would like to elaborate on Bluewave's response. Lkjhgfdsa 0's argument seems to rely on confusing ethnicity with race. As was stated previously by someone, ethnicity is cultural, whereas race is genetic. Meredith Kercher may have been Eurasian genetically, but culturally, she was simply British (as far as I can tell). So describing her ethnicity as Anglo-Indian rather than British seems extremely presumptuous. If this characteristic of the deceased is really important enough to deserve a place in the infobox, I think an effort should be made to ensure that it isn't misleading. (I could of course be completely wrong about all this, I'm only a darned anon sometimes-editor.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.31.189.149 (talk) 22:16, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Adding Meredith Kercher presumed ethnic group in the infobox doesnt provide useful information to the reader. Instead that is a misleading information, because someone could think that Meredith had particular habits, in relation to the culture, language or religion of that specific group that indeed she did not have at all. She was fully British and had enjoyed a life in a global way tyipical of western civilizations, or at least she did in the last months of her life, wich is what it is of interest in the article.--Grifomaniacs (talk) 20:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Lead section

A few days ago (say the 19th Dec) I thought the lead section was beginning to look finished: the wording needed a bit of polishing and I think it failed to mention that the defendants all maintained their innocence throughout, but otherwise (to my mind) it looked OK. It stuck to the factual events, named the people concerned and gave the outcomes. It read to me like the sort of entry you might find in, say, a one-volume encyclopaedia. Since then, it has been expanded a bit. This is OK but I think we are starting to see some of the details of arguments and evidence creeping in, which will make it difficult to keep the lead balanced and risk making it too big. I thought this should be discussed before it becomes a problem! A prime example of what I'm talking about is the statement that "[Knox and Sollecito] further claimed that the murder had been commited by Guédé, a man with whom they had no relationship, acting alone". Initially I deleted this because I thought it must be wrong, but apparently it is true. However, putting a statement like this in the lead begs a lot of questions. Firstly, how were Knox and Sollecito able to accuse Guede when they claimed not to know him, and how do they know he acted a lone if they weren't there at the time? Secondly it leads to the question of how the prosecution responded to this claim and what evidence led the court to reject it? If we put all this in, the whole thing starts to get out of hand. My own view would be that we should keep the lead very simple and avoid getting into the details of evidence and arguments. What do others think? Bluewave (talk) 11:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

  • I agree with your viewpoint to avoid the string-of-unravelling details. Since this is a "wiki" website, I use "wikilinks" to connect a broader intro phrase to the article subsection name (by "#" prefix) as a link to each subsection that handles all the various minor details: "Guede ([[#Guede trial|who said he was there]]) and 2 others...". Of course, internal links require some stability of subsection names, but naming is typically not a problem. That tactic, of broad phrases wikilinked to subsection names, allows each to be "debated" with those sections, rather than clutter the intro text. Thus, problem solved. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Result of Guede appeal

I wasn't sure what to make of the reduction in Guede's sentence when I read about it on the BBC site. However, there is a useful statement from Commisario Montalbano at http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php. Of course, this is a blog and not appropriate for using directly in the article, but is at least an informed opinion. He explains that an appeal of a fast-track trial is different from the 'tougher' full appeal of an appellate Court of Assizes, which will apply to Knox and Sollecito. He goes on to say that the reduction for Guede was based on an assumption that Knox and Sollecito sentences would be confirmed in appeal, and he then granted to Guede the same ‘attenuanti generiche’ which has been applied to the other two. He then applied the 1/3 auto-reduction for his fast-track trial. The result of this arithmetic is the 16 years. So this has simply brought Guede's sentence into line with the other two and it sounds like it is entirely the expected outcome (to those who are familiar with the Italian justice system). Bluewave (talk) 18:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

This gross reduction in sentence for the vicious killer of Meredith Kercher further shakes my ability to have any trust in this judicial system. Guede should be serving a life sentence for such a vicious attack against Meredith and then leaving her there to die. If anyone has a link to an English version of the court's ruling on the Guede appeal, it would be helpful if that could be posted so that we could understand what happened. Also,it would certainly be outrageous for a man who is so clearly the killer of Meredith Kercher to get a lighter sentence than the two people who have been unjustly convicted and that Guede has tried to frame. The whole case is just so backwards and incompetent. PilgrimRose (talk) 19:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  • The fast-track trial allows the convicted to have a reduced sentence, so compare it to a plea bargain in the U.S. system, where someone might enter a plea of "guilty of manslaughter" to receive a 16-yr sentence (or such). Also, we don't know what will happen in the system to Guede during 16 years. In U.S. prisons, any child molesters must fear for their lives in prison, and we don't know how the inmates in Italy feel about a 20-yr-old girl dying while a guy goes nightclubbing afterward (like doing cartwheels is somehow worse?). Those are reasons I added the "Controversies" section to the article, so that we could address these issues that many readers would expect Wikipedia to address in the larger perspective, such as explaining the fast-track sentencing. All your points are valid issues for the article's scope. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:23, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
He has simply got the same sentence as the other people convicted of the same crime. Then his sentence has been reduced by 1/3 which is the statutory reduction for opting for a fast track trial. Bluewave (talk) 19:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
As it has been already pointed out, it is perfectly legal. Guegé was granted the attenuanti generiche (generic extenuating circumstances), so the Judge could no longer mete out a life imprisonment sentence - which would be reduced to thirty years, for he opted for a fast-track trial -; the maximum penalty was, then, twenty-four years' imprisonment, which was reduced to 16 years, for he opted for he fast-track trial.
There is nothing incompetent, here; the Judge has just applied our Code to the letter. Salvio giuliano (talk) 20:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
What extenuating circumstances are / were there in Guede's case? Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 22:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Presumably, the same ones that applied to Sollecito and Knox, but I don't think they have been made public yet. I think the suggestion was that it was it on account of their young age, but I presume we will only know for sure when the full judgement is published. Bluewave (talk) 22:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Is the Italian language version of this appeal ruling on-line on the same site where the Guede trial ruling is? If so, could someone who speaks Italian take a look at it and tell us what this new ruling says? I think there is tremendous interest in learning the details. I do feel very sorry for the Kercher family at this sad time right before Christmas--and now they are hit with this!PilgrimRose (talk) 22:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
The ruling is not yet online; it has not yet been written, actually.
In Italy, the Judge reads only the dispositivo part of the ruling (the judicial decision of the punishment to be inflicted or the judgement that the defendant is not guilty); he has got, then, up to 90 days to publish the parte motiva, sort of an explanation.
That said, the attenuanti generiche are always granted, unfortunately; because, if the Judge of first instance does not grant them, then the Appelate Court does. Sometimes, they are conceded because the defendant is too young; sometimes, because he is too old; sometimes, because he had a tough time when growing up; sometimes, because he was a pillar of his community; once, even because he held a most important political office.
After all, in Italy it is almost impossible to end up in gaol. I'm about to reveal you a secret: even if the Court of Cassation confirms this sentence, he will not serve his sixteen years' term. First, the time he's served in custody will be deducted, so he will end up having to serve some 14 years. Then, this term will be reduced by a quarter (it is called liberazione anticipata and it means that every six months, 45 days will be subtracted from his sentence).
This means that after some seven years he will be eligible for parole.
Italians themselves criticise their own legal system because they deem it to lenient, but noone appears to want to change it... Salvio giuliano (talk) 14:17, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

[Unindent] A couple of points. Firstly, Wikid77 has (above) likened the fast-track system to US-type plea-bargaining. We need to be a bit careful about this comparison because, in the fast-track system (as I understand it), it is quite possible for the defendant to plead their innocence of all charges throughout the process. The fact that Guede opted for a fast-track in no way affects his own argument that he his innocent. A second point is that I think European sentences may be less harsh than those in the US. In the UK, for example, someone given a "life sentence" is actually eligible for parole after about 15 years (depending on the case). Bluewave (talk) 11:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

House diagram considered a map under copyright

The house diagram that I created for the article has been deleted from Wikimedia Commons, as being a "map" (rather than artwork) whose dimensions must be based on public-domain sources. I still have the workfiles for that image, but due to consideration as a so-called "map", it will be difficult to re-add it to the Commons images. I've never tried to put a fair-use rationale on an image that I created myself, so I'm not sure what reasoning to use. This is a somewhat of a Catch-22 situation: if I haven't been in the Perugia house, I can't put the diagram ("map") on Commons, but since I created the diagram myself, I have no source that I am "fairly using" to copy the image without altering it, so it can't be a fair-use image? I'll see what I can do about this. -Wikid77 08:40, 23 December 2009

I dunno what the answer is (I was always running foul of this kind of thing so eventually gave up trying to add pictures). Is it acceptable to say that the map is drawn from various sources: the textual description of the layout of the flat given in the court documents (which explain the rooms and how they interconnect), photographs of the house (which give the overall shape and the positions of doors and windows), and the plans published by the BBC and Sunday Times, from which you could verify the positions of the internal doorways. Then make sure your actual room proportions are not quite the same as any of the published maps. Bluewave (talk) 11:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • That sounds like it might work, if the rooms were obviously skewed to differing sizes (as a concept diagram not a map). For now, I have placed the image in Wikipedia as a fair-use architectural work, rendered from the BBC crime-scene image. -Wikid77 12:16, 23 December 2009

Can someone please rewrite this entire article from scratch?

I came to this article thinking I had no particular point of view and could help make it better, less partisan and more encyclopaedic. I'm now coming to the conclusion that it is just too difficult. My own attempts at neutrality seem to be perceived as being partisan and the effort of trying to justify my neutrality turns out to be just too difficult. I am not a novice to Wikipedia...I have been here at least four years and must have made at least a couple of thousand edits, but I have never felt so disheartened as I have been over this article. It clearly needs someone else with complete neutrality and a great deal more tenacity than I can muster. Sadly, the squabbling over the imaging of those convicted of the murder has completely overshadowed the memory of the victim. Please, somebody, delete the whole thing and start again. Bluewave (talk) 22:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The article is nowhere near bad enough to need a complete rewrite. The problems are caused by the following: a) this is an emotive high-profile case, about which many people have strong opinions; b) whilst many people read this article, there are few people editing it. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 00:34, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Sympathies Bluewave. Wikipedia can be frustrating. However, please reflect on how (un)important a short period of infuriating editing is. Take a break if you need to. I think your contributions have been worthwhile. IMO the article is getting vandalised by a couple of POV-pushing kids. But they'll probably get bored. --FormerIP (talk) 03:50, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
The article is far too long and detailed. Kercher's murder hardly deserves more than a footnote in an encyclopaedia. A brief article may be justified given the controversies re foreign students getting caught up in Italian justice etc, but the detail here is more suited to a personal web-site set up by an obsessive nut.218.14.55.79 (talk) 07:40, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the supportive comments! I absolutely agree that the current article is out of proportion with the importance of the subject (for an encyclopaedia). For instance, the Guede appeal decision, which caused quite an emotional outburst on this talk page, warranted just 3 short paragraphs on page 36 of yesterday's Times. There is certainly way too much detail here at present. I had thought that a first (and not very controversial) step towards thinning the detail would be to remove some of the stuff based on early police reports that were later proved wrong or unsubstantiated. For example, the idea that there was a lone killer, the suggestion that Kercher had made a date with Guede and the idea that there were fingerprints "all over" the room. However, even this material could not be deleted without being immediately reverted. Not only is there too much detail, but it is also highly selective. It leaves out, for example the CCTV evidence of a woman approaching the house about half an hour before Kercher's return home. And what about the evidence of Hekuran Kokomani, who says that Knox threatened him with a knife on the evening of the murder? Or the testimony of Antonio Curatolo, who says he saw Knox ond Sollecito in the square, cuddling, behaving erratically, and looking anxiously towards the house on the night of the murder? I'm not suggesting that all this detail should be added, merely that the article should at least summarise the evidence against the three defendants. The forensic evidence made it very clear that someone had thoroughly cleaned the house after the murder, but had left anything that blatantly incriminated Guede (eg the unflushed toilet) for all to see. I think a comparable "clean-up job" has been done on this article! It is probably impossible to sort all this out now, while emotions are running high. Let's hope that, in time, people will see reason. Bluewave (talk) 10:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Theft-and-murder-crossing-the-Atlantic: The interest in this article is huge, as currently ranking near the Top 1000 articles being viewed, with pageview counts similar to "Heath Ledger" (another tragic death). You have the British girl, the American & Italian couple, and the Ivory-Coast man in the room with blood. During Trial #1, he said he met Meredith at the house, talked in the kitchen, then she goes to her room to find her money-drawer emptied, and he then claims they were intimate soon, but she doesn't even call her roommates (in town) to complain her (major) money is gone? Forensics find blood on the cabinet-drawers? Of course, on English Wikipedia, with massive U.S. & UK readership, there are many unresolved issues which people want to read. Everyone heard "guilty" so they aren't just reading the article to find how many years. I think we need to expand this article, including with a Wikibooks entry, to cover the DNA, blood, fingerprints, cell-station phone tracking, parking-lot camera, desklamp, numerous witnesses, etc. Plus, was Meredith's room key stolen to lock her room "from inside". No DNA on the mobile phones, last used when? And, explain why a later cleanup would leave 5-6 barefoot blood-prints being wiped from the (tile?) floor. There are so many issues, and that's why the details run in many directions. We need a larger, Wikibooks entry. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:36, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I rest my case! Bluewave (talk) 15:08, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Expand the article: 200kb-300kb

26-Dec-09: I had thought that creating a subarticle would allow a major expansion of details on that page, without bloating the main article. However, Wikipedia rarely operates in a "pre-planned" fashion (for resource balancing). Instead, just keep expanding the main article, and when huge, then consider re-creating the subarticle(s). Compare to 17 subarticles from article "Charles Manson" (107kb), with subarticles for the Manson Family members & the 7 Tate/LaBianca Murders on August 9-10, 1969. Pregnant actress Sharon Tate was stabbed 16 times, at the house with her 4 friends also stabbed/shot, and the 4 convicted suspects were also in their twenties: Susan Atkins (age 21), Charles "Tex" Watson (23), Patricia Krenwinkel (21) and Linda Kasabian (20). Since the 2007 Kercher murder was treated as a gang of 3 suspects convicted of stabbing her, then similar coverage would seem justified. However, beyond the murder, there were charges of sexual assault and theft. Plus, the Manson Family operated only in the U.S., whereas the Kercher case involves the British girl, the American & Italian couple, and the Ivory-Coast man. Hence, expect vastly broader coverage to handle details related to each nation/culture. Plus, as a recent case, more details would be found published in reliable sources, as compared to sparse details of murders 40 years ago. So, expect a massive page of 200-300kb. Beyond that size, the details can be moved into a Wikibooks entry, because we can't expect WP to pre-plan the long-term size as being a wikibook. -Wikid77 11:25, 26 December 2009

This case is very different from that of the Manson family. They were a cult-gang with a leader; they committed several murders in a few different locations; their members knew each other well. This case was one event on one evening; there is no real evidence of any planning prior to the murder. According to the transcripts linked from this talk page, Knox and Sollecito first met on 25 October, just under a week before the murder. It seems they were both only vaguely acquainted with Guede. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 01:49, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

An unusual murder case

26-Dec-09: Some people seem to think this is a low-profile, routine homicide requiring only a "footnote" in an encyclopedia. However, try the following neutral test of finding similar cases: hunt for the following set of phrases in a search-engine (of billions of webpages): "murder and sexual assault" theft students "3 suspects". Then, count all of the similar, ordinary murder cases that match. I found only 1 murder case: Kercher. -Wikid77 11:51, 26 December 2009

A combination of circumstances make this a very rare type of crime; I can't think of a similar case. The very international nature of it makes it of interest to a wide audience. Knox's involvement gives the media a sensational focus due to her gender, attractiveness and class. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 01:49, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

The case is striking also for the fact that to many observers, the prosecutor is a very controversial figure the likes of which we do not encounter in the U.S. PilgrimRose (talk) 06:12, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Italian article

The italian article is short and clear in Wiki. Why in English is so long? Justice is justice,the rest is bla bla bla.92.39.149.7 (talk) 11:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Both the Italian article and the Simple English article are too short; they need expanding. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 23:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Most of the interest in Wikipedia is with the English Wikipedia primarily (for the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia, India, Egypt, Kenya, etc.), then with the German Wikipedia 2nd, and the Spanish or Italian Wikipedia smaller than those. Consequently, the English Wikipedia has larger articles, and more articles (live count: 6,822,272), than any of the 262 other-language Wikipedias. However, many articles which focus on other nations are larger in other Wikipedias, such as articles about towns in Austria, or Germany, being larger in the German Wikipedia. -Wikid77 00:30, 28 December 2009

Article is a farce but avoids prosecution secrets

This article is farce and a disgrace compared to other articles In Wikipedia. As long as the "truth" about the case has not come out, it cannot be that the defense always has the last word. There is no respect of the work of the Italian prosecution and jurisdiction, they themselves are judged in this article, as if they were primary school pupils or worse. It would be best to translate the Italian wikipedia article into english and to prevent anyone associated with a personal interest (e.g. "friends of Amanda") from contributing to it, if that was possible. Cannot somebody seriously neutral rewrite all this and keep out any personal interest and manipulative disguise. Otherwise, I suggest that this article should be called "Amanda Knox involvement into the Murder of Meredith Kercher as seen by her friends and relatives". I'm seriously disgusted, even if Amanda is innocent, this article gets the current status of the trial and previous events totally wrong. Just look at some of the phrases used, typically at the end of a paragraph, to give Knox the last word: " Knox's defence claim..", "Defence lawyers for Knox dismissed..", "There is no forensic evidence, such as DNA..", "The defense and Knox's supporters claim that it was the real killer, Guédé...","Knox's family has claimed that she was convicted because..", "Knox, her family and many supporters in the U.S. maintain that she has been unjustly convicted and vow to..". People responsible of this distortion should be ashamed of themselves, whatever the truth behind the involvement of Knox and Sollecito is. If they are seriously involved, which seems really reasonable after all, you load a subtle kind of "guilt" or at least serious responsibility on yourselves. —91.109.190.146 (talk) 19:28, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that not enough evidence has been presented, often due to a lack of people able to translate the Italian webpages. On the other hand, please respect the privacy of the prosecution's case, in that the article does not reveal all their secret evidence against the 3 accused (or others). In any court proceedings that escalate to introduce new evidence, such as a re-trial after a hung jury, the prosecution has the ability to "fire new ammo" as new evidence, without giving pro-defence culprits extra time to taint or alter that evidence (or new witnesses). I know it must be frustrating, but I think the prosecution would love this article, because it avoids revealing their secrets, and thereby, maintains the strength of their arguments in each appeal. Please try to view this article in that manner, from the point of view of the prosecution, who benefit, greatly, when the article focuses mainly on reported opinions and does impact their evidence or witnesses. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:07, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
I would certainly agree with the IP-address poster above that the article is currently unbalanced. An interesting test is to compare the cases of Knox and Guede. Both were charged with murder; both have maintained their innocence throughout; both maintained that the evidence against them did not point to their being murderers; both have been found guilty of murder; both have been sentenced to long prison sentences; both are appealing against their convictions. Yet the article treats them very differently and is much more sympathetic to Knox's case than it is to Guede's. Admittedly there are some differences. Guede opted for a fast track judgement: I don't know what interpretation, if any, can be put on this, but it is certainly not the equivalent of pleading guilty, and he has certainly maintained his innocence. He was given a longer sentence which implies that his crime was somehow worse (particularly taking account of the reduction that he presumably received in exchange for fast-tracking). However, 25 years is still a very long sentence. Another difference is that Knox has had a very vocal "supporters club", particularly in the US. This is of course notable, and should be mentioned, but should not permeate the whole article. Knox has also had much more media coverage (some favourable, some damning) which again is notable but again should not permeate the article. Also, the evidence against them is different, but Wikipedia editors should absolutely not be reassessing the evidence and letting their personal conclusions affect the way the article is slanted. At present, I think that some people are taking a personal point of view that the evidence against Guede is more damning than that against Knox and are editing the article accordingly. The article should summarise the evidence objectively and summarise the arguments put forward by prosecution and defence but, as I and several others have already said, it should not turn into a retrial by Wikipedians. Bluewave (talk) 12:44, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Guede's sentence is significantly longer than Knox's and Sollecito's because of his substantial criminal history and because his part in the sexual assault was more severe. Knox has many supporters due to the fact she is female, attractive, has a supportive, middle-class family and the evidence against her is much less than that against Guede. There is no reason for anyone to want to support Guede, who the mainstream media, including The Times, say is a drug dealer and thief, and against whom there is easily enough evidence to prove he raped / sexually assaulted and murdered Kercher. No-one has a good word to say about Guede, which is almost certainly because he has no good qualities and no-one likes him. Knox is spoken of positively by many people, had only one misdemeanor against her name so minor as to not require a court appearance, prior to the murder, and against whom the evidence is, for many, insufficent to convict. I don't know how long murder trials in Italy usually last, but the length of the proceedings against Knox and Sollecito suggest it was a difficult case to convict, due to the limited evidence. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 16:12, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Regarding their criminal history, I might have added that neither Knox nor Guede had a record of violent or sex-related crime (I'm pretty sure I've read that this is true). When you say that the evidence against Knox is much less than that against Guede, you are expressing a personal opinion, not stating a fact. I might very well agree with your opinion, but neither of us should reflect that opinion in our edits. All we can say for certain is that, in both cases, the evidence was sufficient for a court to return a guilty verdict. Again, your suggestion that "the length the proceedings against Knox and Sollecito suggest it was a difficult case to convict, due to the limited evidence" is purely your opinion. It might equally be argued that the case took so long because there was so much evidence to be considered! Either way it is an editor's opinion and should not influence the article. Bluewave (talk) 17:31, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
It would be useful to know the details of Guede's criminal record. Even if the offences were not violent or sexual, a person with several convictions will tend to receive a significantly longer sentence than a person with little or no criminal history. Reliable souces say that there was conclusive evidence against Guede, and that the case against Knox was much weaker, so the article should reflect that. Lots of evidence from both the prosecution and defence would suggest a case that is difficult to reach a decision on, as does the jury taking many hours to deliberate. We don't know for sure unless we can read the transcripts of the court proceedings. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 18:12, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Guédé actually had no criminal record, he was never condamned before the Kercher case (he was questionned several times for non-violent offences, but never condamned). It's Amanda Knox who has a record for a noisy party in the USA. Let's get the facts right. 88.27.216.244 20:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Huh, I guess Guede's blood-handprint was identified from Italy's sweet, pristine-choirboy database? No, numerous sources indicate Guede was fingerprinted in Milan (27Oct07) when caught with a stolen 16-inch (half-meter) kitchen knife inside a closed nursery school where money had been taken, while Guede was caught holding PC+cellphone stolen from a Perugia law office burgled with a large rock through an upstairs window on 14Oct07. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Does anyone have any evidence he had no previous convictions? He was certainly a career criminal who had been arrested and questioned a few times. How did he avoid being prosecuted or deported? Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 15:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
How can you say that "He was certainly a career criminal..." with no supporting evidence. Hasn't it already been stated that he had no previous convictions? rturus (talk) 00:12, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Many reliable sources, including The Times, state he was a drug dealer and thief prior to the murder. The only place I've seen it stated that he had no previous convictions is this talk page. If true, a ref should be available. It is not rare for a person to have committed many crimes but having never been convicted; the vast majority of crimes do not result in a conviction. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 00:40, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I suppose the statements of Guédé's lawyers in the Court are more serious source than any newspaper. Guédé had a clean record: http://it.reuters.com/article/topNews/idITMIE5BK0KY20091221?sp=true
It's difficult to bring evidence for something that DID NOT take place. Guédé cannot be deported, as he is a permanent resident, he entered as an infant and grew up in Italy. The press was fast in labelling him as a criminal, while it was Sollecito who had problems with drugs already in his hometown and Knox who was feed for a noisy party. Guédé was not questionned for drug-dealing. He got to trouble for buying stolen property and was found sleeping in a kindergarten, having a knife he did not use against those who told him to leave. He was only unemployed for a month before the crime. See Micheli's report - the report of the judge who sent Guédé to jail for 30 years for PARTICIPATING in the murder of Meredith Kercher: http://www.penale.it/page.asp?mode=1&IDPag=750. It's very interesting WHO is labelled as drifter and career criminal without proofs and who is "just a normal kid" while there are PROOFS that they had problems with the police.

79.156.168.92 15:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

It has been pointed out already that Guede's sentence of 30years is the reduced tariff for murder available when a defendant chooses the fast-track (giudizio abbreviato) procedure as opposed to the tariff of life available in full trial procedure(see Italian_Criminal_Procedure). The length of the Sollecito & Knox procedure is not (I believe) unusual, since there are many stages of assessment of the case before the actual court convenes (which giudizio abbreviato does not). The duration of the Sollecito & Knox trial itself, remember, consisted of many sessions separated by long periods. The reported comments of one of the panel of judges as to the reasons for not imposing life sentences on Sollecito and Knox wait for the publication of the summation for verification. However (this is only my inference) Knox seems to have had the longer sentence because they believed her to have delivered the fatal blow and Guede must feel aggrieved that the did not have a panel of judges as maybe he would only have received the same 25 years that the other accessory Sollecito did. Some of the remarks above seem to me just a continued self-justification of the "Knox faction". rturus (talk) 09:59, 15 December 2009 (UTC)10:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Whose assertion is it that Knox was the leader / main perpetrator of the murder and that Guede and Sollecito were mere accessories? Many media sources have claimed / implied that, but was it stated by the prosecution? Does the evidence indicate that to be the case? Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 12:38, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't believe (though I may be wrong) that the prosecution have idenfied a "ringleader". None of the the suspects have confessed to the crime and there is no eye-witness testimony to the murder itself, so I think this would be mere specualtion on the part of newspapers. --FormerIP (talk) 12:45, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
The court found that there were three accessories to/participants in the murder, all of whom were convicted of murder. As I clearly stated, it was purely my inference that the higher tariff was applied to Knox because the court decided she inflicted the fatal wound. We have to wait for the publication of Judge Massei's report before we know what their conclusions actually were. Unfortunately a lot of people don't seem content to wait and so are spouting all sorts, to which I made my reply. I repeat, in case it is not clear, this is only my ill-informed supposition. rturus (talk) 18:06, 15 December 2009 (UTC)18:08, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
To my knowledge - which comes only from newspaper, I must add -, Amanda was issued a higher tariff because she committed more crimes than Sollecito. She has been found guilty of calunnia (a peculiar form of slander), because she tried to frame Lumumba. Salvio giuliano (talk) 22:06, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Witnesses

The claimed sighting of Knox and Sollecito buying bleach is unconfirmed / contradicted. Are there any other claims of seeing or hearing either of them, or Guede, during the time between Kercher leaving her friend's house on the evening of 1 November 2009 and when Knox says she came back to the house at around noon the following day? Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 14:37, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
The sighting of Knox in the convenience store was testified to in open court as I understand it? Additionally, case notes I have read show that up to 20 separate witnesses saw either or all three of the convicted murderers in the vicinity of Knox's residence on the night of the murder. [User:Seven-nil|Seven -nil]] 20.54, 15 December 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.192.1.168 (talk) 20:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Please submit a link to the case notes that show these details. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 22:12, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
It's referred to about three-quarters of the way down here: [1] --FormerIP (talk) 15:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Media coverage

I think could be interesting to note that a delegation of the Italy USA Foundation met on Sunday December 13, 2009, in Capanne prison on the outskirts of Perugia Amanda Knox, in an effort to heal any rift over accusations that Italy's justice system is unfair. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.199.65.2 (talk) 17:48, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Why did a lot of the media coverage in the UK and Italy change from feeling sure that Knox and Sollecito were guilty into doubting their guilt and saying the evidence against them was insufficient to convict? Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 18:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

  • The "lone wolf theory" was supported by shocking testimony of 2 solicitors (lawyers) and a teacher on 26-27 June: a Perugia policeman notified the solicitors that Guede was caught in Milan with their laptop/phone burgled 14-Oct-07 with a rock in their upstairs window. The teacher testified Guede had stolen a 16-inch kitchen knife & money inside her locked nursery school 27-Oct-07. Finally, the prosecution confirmed Guede DNA was all over the bra, when claiming Guede stretched the back strap while Sollecito pulled the clasp, as if 2 men often share removing a bra. Guede had: a stolen cellphone, stolen money, stolen large knife, and much DNA on the moved bra of a cleanup; hence, an experienced lone wolf with no need of co-murderers. You don't have to be a media Einstein to see the connections. -Wz777 (talk) 13:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Speaking for my own perception of the UK media, the only paper that I read regularly is The Times and I would say that, during the trial, the best stories they could present were regarding new evidence and revelations in court. These were largely from the prosecution side. So we had headlines such as New Meredith Kercher witness casts doubt on Amanda Knox's alibi [17 Nov 2008], Knox’*s "shower in blood stained bathroom" [8 Feb 2009], etc. After the trial was all over, they tried to find some additional mileage in the story. One way was doing a complete recap of the story: The Kercher trial: Amanda Knox snared by her lust and her lies [6 Dec 2009]; another was to try to analyse the motives of the 'convicted murderers': Fantasy world fuelled by sex, drink and drugs [7 Dec 2009], and when all else failed, they printed a piece (in the Times 2 supplement) on Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?, [8 Dec 09]. So, in answer to your question, I'd say it was because the trial was over, the verdicts delivered and they'd run out of new angles for stories. But then I'm pretty cynical about the media. I don't think they are sympathetic to any particular point of view, they just want to sell newspapers. I don't think we should try to read anything into this regarding the Wikipedia article. Bluewave (talk) 13:15, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Long-term omission: Police released Guede days before murder

29-Dec-09: The article has finally been expanded to note that Rudy Guede had been caught with a large stolen knife (16-inch, 40-cm) inside a closed Milan school on 27-Oct-07 (5 days before the murder) with a laptop PC reported stolen 14-Oct-07 from a Perugia law office burgled with a rock breaking an upstairs window. The Perugia police were notified Guede had the laptop, plus a cellphone also stolen from the Perugia office with the broken window. However, Guede was released by the Milan police, and not transferred to the Perugia police, as testified by the two Perugia solicitors (attorneys) at the Knox/Sollecito trial hearing on 26-June-2009 and by the school teacher 27 June. Hence, the reports of Guede holding a stolen knife and stolen property from a prior upstairs-window burglary could be confirmed by Milan police, Perugia police, and the 2 solicitors (lawyers Palazzoli and Paolo Brocchi) whose PC, printer and mobile phone were stolen on 14-Oct-07. I regret that this major information had been omitted from the article, even until late December, while the details had been in major news reports in June 2009. Please understand that when police release a knife-carrying theft-suspect days before a theft/murder, with his handprints and DNA near/on the stabbed victim, the event is judicial dynamite, and should never have been omitted from the article. The details are not rumors, but rather, confirmed by Milan police, Perugia police, and court testimony of 3 professionals. -Wikid77 (29Dec2009) revised 15:34, 31 December 2009

Still trying to understand what really happened. The fact that the police kept ignoring Guede's activities in the weeks before the murder is troubling. More importantly, they must have had Guede's fingerprints already on file at the time of the murder from his prior arrests. The police did say that they were able to identify Guede through his fingerprints at the Kercher scene. If the police had his fingerprints already on file, they should have been able to confirm that Guede had been at the scene of the crime very quickly, very early on. Yet, the prosecutor ignored Guede and focused on Knox, Sollecito and Lumumba until Lumumba could establish an alibi. I find this very strange. If Guede's fingerprints were at the crime scene and the police had the ability to identify his fingerprints, then why did they take such a long and winding road in focusing on Guede? Instead, the police spent a great amount of time and effort trying to connect others to the crime, based on very weak forensics, while the guy whose DNA and fingerprints are all over the place was initially ignored. Was this all just incompetency or was it by design?? PilgrimRose (talk) 02:16, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

  • Solid sources state the Italian media noted Guede had priors for minor drug-dealing (not just possession). Since the case was "unattended dead body" (DB), the room was processed first, and the Micheli Judgment (MJ) notes the victim was moved circa 1am 3-Nov-09 (nearly 12 hours after discovery, which weaked time-of-death evidence), and caused further delay, since the pillow with the handprint was under the DB. Blood was everywhere (I think also under some cabinet-drawers that were believed to have hidden money), so the inventory of items was extensive. Guede, even stated he touched everything in the room ("in his confusion" not like he was searching for money, we should believe). So, all the items in the room had to be processed, but still, a blood handprint should have been easily noted on the pillow, yet I have no source that states when the fingerprints were matched. Bloggers claim that Knox's room had numerous "smudged fingerprints" (they claim the expert testified "not a wipe-down" in Knox's room), while her only usable fingerprint was on a drinking glass, so therefore, add all items of the flat into the forensic inventory. Since Filomena Romanelli gave a cellphone to Kercher, then Kercher's DNA was likely all over Romanelli's room, plus her room, the 2 baths (already confirmed in news), plus the kitchen. So, now in Rome, they have to match fingerprints (in Kercher blood), and not transfer Kercher DNA to a knife tip, while processing hundreds of Kercher-flat items for forensic analysis. That might have delayed the fingerprint detection, especially since the Sollecito knife collection + kitchenware had to be tested to avoid cross-contamination with Kercher DNA. So, surely, they must have tested all of Kercher's hundreds of DNA items & Sollecito's many knives in labs at opposite ends of Rome to speed processing while avoiding cross-contamination (ya right, not likely). Thus, all those factors, might have slowed identification, especially since they already had arrested the necessary "sexual threesome" with a black guy, so why look for another black guy (any black guy would suffice to shock some Italians?). Anyway, I guess now we have 3 possibilities why Guede was not identified earlier: incompetency, design, or delay due to pervert-fantasizing? Again, tell me this case won't echo for decades, also in category "closet-prevert officials with bisexual fantasies" (no names please). -Wikid77 (talk) 12:58, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I despair!

Returning here, having had a few days' Christmas break from the internet, it seems to me that the article itself had been overly influenced by editors' opinions and is now just getting worse by the day. This talk page seems to have been taken over by people's theories about what might have happened; people's opinions about the competence of the police; people's assessments of who was lying and who telling the truth; people's opinions about the chief prosecutor and almost anything other than the purpose of this page, which is to discuss improving the article. At one point, above, Wikid77 even tells us to "beware of other court testimony that might have falsely accused Amanda Knox of deceitful behaviour...". Rubbish! The article should summarise the main evidence (including testimony under oath) that led the courts to convict the three accused. Bluewave (talk) 17:35, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree, but I really don't know what the solution is. Apologies I was not more supportive when this was taken to WP:AN previously. Perhaps the same thing should be done again. But diffs showing the worst examples should be gathered first - you can't expect admins to do a thorough investigation. --FormerIP (talk) 02:01, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, I wish that the trial events could have been fully summarized, as I had attempted to do with a "Trial of Knox/Sollecito" subarticle, but people stopped that effort, too. Instead, we just have to let the whole situation unfold in the main article, as time permits, in order to get the all-compassing (encyclopedic) view of the murder and related events. Hence, that includes phone records that show when Knox called about the blood/glass at the flat. Plus, that means that the 3 short sentences under section "Guede trial" had to be expanded into several paragraphs, plus him holding the stolen PC/cellphone from the Perugia law office burgled with a rock through an upstairs window on 14Oct07. This has led to the 27Oct07 Milan police booking for concealing a deadly weapon (Guede's 16-inch, 41 cm knife stolen from the school kitchen), charges of theft, possession of stolen property, and his fingerprinting in Milan that matched him from the blood-handprint on the pillow under Kercher's body. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
"Encyclopedic" doesn't mean "include everything". Neither does "summarize". We are not trying to re-run the trials. We are not even trying to provide enough information for people to make a judgement on the fairness of the trials. I'm not sure how significant the things you mention above actually proved to be. The phone records stuff was all part of the trial and taken into account by the court but not overly commented on by the media; the crime was undeniably violent and sexual but none of the defendants (including Guede) had any history of violent or sexual crimes. The petty theft stuff is no kind of indicator of violent secxual tendencies. There is some knife history for all three: Sollecito had a known fascination with knives and was carrying a flicknife when arrested (which would be enough to put you in prison in the UK!); there was witness testimony of Knox threatening a lorry driver with a knife (I personally didn't find this convincing, but my personal views are irrelevant); and Guede had nicked a knife from the kitchen of the school that he broke into for somewhere to sleep for the night. And the rock through the window is, at least in my mind, rather in Guede's favour! If you are going to fake a break-in, you don't choose a method that was used in a previous crime and will lead the police straight back to yourself. However, it might be chosen by someone who thought that Guede had used it before and sought to pin the entire thing on him. Bluewave (talk) 16:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Shocking revelations

Some readers seem shocked at the text that the article now contains, because formerly, for many months, the article had been less than half the current size. However, I was shocked at all the details that the article formerly omitted. There have been several recent "revelations" added to the article, even though the issues had been published months, or years, ago in reliable sources, as in mainstream newspapers. Many issues had shocked me, including:

  • Kercher's 2 credit cards were missing, along with 300 euros (rent money for her flat) plus the 2 mobile phones (for local & UK calls).
  • Rudy Guede had been released by Milan police, just 5 days before the murder, while in possession of stolen PC/phone from a Perugia law office burgled with a large rock through an upstairs window. That was logged with Milan police, Perugia police, and 2 attorneys who testified 26 June 2009 at a Knox/Sollecito trial hearing.
  • Forensics matched the DNA of Rudy Guede in several places on Kercher's bra, although she had been wearing 2 cotton-mesh shirts: his DNA was matched on the right-side of the bra (in Micheli Judgment), plus in several "ample amounts" on the back bra strap typically held when removing a bra. Yet, in his trial he claimed she was fully dressed when he left.
  • The 3rd bedroom, claimed as the scene of a "staged break-in" was not sealed when Knox/Sollecito said blood smears were present in many rooms of the house; so instead, police claim that 8 people (3 women, 5 men) were allowed to walk through, and alter, that room, which was to be analyzed later to determine if the window had been broken from inside or outside, depending on the pattern of broken glass if no one else (such as 8 people) had stepped near the broken window glass on the floor (to look outside the broken window). Forensics reported many footprints, of the size of both men and women, in that room (duh).

For most of 2009, the article had mentioned the word "theft" only once or twice, even though all 3 suspects had been charged with theft for over a year. All of these issues I found to be totally shocking. So, please understand, if other people are shocked by details of the events in the article, they are not alone. -Wz777 (talk) 10:02, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

New year's Resolutions and Satanic rituals

Resolution: If I don't like it, I won't just whinge about it, I'll do something about it. So, onto the "satanic rites" which are mentioned twice in the lead and elsewhere. The cite given for "satanic rite" is talking about a hearing that was held behind closed doors. The quote about the satanic rite was actually a quote from Sollecito's lawyer, giving his take on the prosecution case. The other cite given (which doesn't say satanic) is the Daily Star. If there is something to be said, a reputable source should be found, not a notorious tabloid. I don't believe that anything was said about satanism at the trial itself and my recollection is that Mignini brought up the suggestion of a "ritual killing", early on in the trial, but this was stamped on instantly by the judge and never mentioned again. It is clear from the Guede judgement that this was not considered at his trial. Summarising the prosecution's theory, in this way, for the article lead, is totally misleading. Hence, I'll edit accordingly. Bluewave (talk) 17:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree 100% --Red King (talk) 20:44, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, I understand not to include issues found only in tabloid sources. -Wikid77 20:59, 31 December 2009

Celtic Horse and sex game evidence

For those of us who didn't know much about the trials (until recently), there is a lot of stuff to add. What exactly is the "Celtic Horse" found in blood (?) on Kercher's bedroom wall? Perhaps it was like a Rorschach test image, where the interpretation depends on what a person favors (a mathematician sees a plus sign "+" where a devout Christian might see a short cross). I don't wish to burden anyone into adding all these details, but I think more details might be sought by readers of the article. This is, in all fairness, an utterly bizarre, wild murder case claiming a sexual orgy, with no condoms, wrappers or sexual aids in the room. To me it seems like a simple theft/murder got faked to appear like a no-evidence sex game? Where are the "sex dice" and "sex game rulebook"? I don't have much time, but I will try to find out if Guede got mad because he lost a round in the sex game or something. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

This is supposed to be an encyclopaedia. You are perfectly entitled to think "to me it seems like a simple theft/murder", but whatever you think it seems like is totally irrelevant to Wikipedia. Bluewave (talk) 10:45, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
  • That phrase was intended to indicate that the article does not provide enough detail to explain how the crime was considered a form of sex game, since common sense would indicate that the situation was more of a theft/murder event. Hence, more detail would need to be added (to the article) to explain how the crime was considered a sex game. -12.78.83.238 (talk) 13:45, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

How does this pass Wikipedia guidelines for inclusion?

I'm new here, please don't assume a negative tone, I'm sincerely curious how this article fits the policies on Wikipedia inclusion. I see a lot of work has been done on this article, and these types of events are always tragic, but I know among other things from randomly browsing Wikipedia policy pages that Wikipedia isn't for memorial pages, and biographies of persons must meet a certain level of renown before they can be included as well. -- Is it enough to meet inclusion that an event is sufficiently covered, was mysterious, perhaps there was a media circus? Being from the USA I hadn't heard about this particular case until now, but I do know these types of things when they happen here are often in the media for weeks or even months after the event. Thanks for your patience in advance, +-Adam.T.Historian (talk) 00:00, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Welcome, Adam. You ask: 'Is it enough to meet inclusion that an event is sufficiently covered, was mysterious, perhaps there was a media circus?' Yes, I'd say that's it exactly. This and similar (e.g. Disappearance of Madeleine McCann) are indeed not biographical articles (which fact is reflected in the titles); such mysteries are very much part of Wikipedia, for better or worse. Rothorpe (talk) 00:31, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
It is easily notable enough. This is an article about a murder; it is not a biography (I believe the presence of the Biography banner on this talk page is due to the fact that the article contains a lot of biographical info about people). Whilst none of the people involved are notable enough for their own biography, this article's presence is justified. High-profile murders deserve their own articles, and this is an unusually high-profile case. For over two years, it has had an unusually large amount of media coverage in the UK, the US and Italy. It is also a rare kind of case; its sensational focus is due to the number of people involved and the fact that one of them is female, attractive and middle-class. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 11:41, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Blocking of users

This is just a courtesy notification that the usernames FormerIP, Wikid77 and Darryl98 have been temporarily blocked from editing Wikipedia due to charges leveled in a secret, 2-week investigation of the article & talk-page entries, as a sort of "sealed indictment" against them. They are only allowed to edit their own talk-pages during the ban. The charges included excessive removal of text, or too many reverts (WP:3RR), and the appearance of sockpuppetry to avoid tracking by other users, with this article. All of the charges have been appealed, but the responses have been mostly negative, and all of the edit-blocks were upheld in the first round of appeals, pending further analysis by several of the many (1707+) admins (an admin is an ordinary "anonymous" username who is allowed access to administrative tools, after debated approval by others). Anyway, if those 3 users appear to have been rudely ignoring any of the recent discussions, please understand that their silence has been because they were swiftly blocked without even a grace period to allow them to announce their temporary ban from the English Wikipedia. Such instant bans have been common in Wikipedia, and some users have quit Wikipedia due to harsh policies, so any banned users might not wish to return. In general, please be courteous in discussions with other users, and try to reach a consensus (as a mutual compromise with opposing users) before removing text from an article. Discussions and edits of these pages are being monitored. The admins deal with a lot of malicious vandalism, so their actions might seem to be overly harsh (as in "violence begets violence"), so please treat the apparent draconian actions as a lack of courtesy in Wikipedia policies, but not as a personal trait of admins, where many wish they didn't have to handle disputes. -12.78.83.238 13:44, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, that explains why one of them has used an IP address to respond to one of the above discussions, then! Bluewave (talk) 17:28, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Lest anyone takes the IP above literally, the process, evidence, and decisions can be seen by anyone at WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Wikid77, as it has been all along. I trust that this will be his last block evasion. LeadSongDog come howl 04:18, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Just for clarification, anyone can see from WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Wikid77 that it doesn't involve any report against me. It does, however, list the IP of the above poster as an aka for one of the users who had been banned by the time the post was made. --FormerIP (talk) 18:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
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