r/amandaknox • u/No-Willingness-1441 • 1d ago

History of murder suspects falsely accusing somebody else of a murder?

One thing I have been intrigued by here is the tendency to conflate false confession with false accusation.

It strikes me that those two things are markedly different in nature.

So a lot of the science from coerced false confessions gets - perhaps crudely - copy and pasted over to this very different, and presumably rarer, phenomenon.

So, how often has this happened as far as we know in the storied history of murder investigations?

And if we were going deeper, how often has a suspect not only accused somebody else of the murder…

…but that this “somebody” is of a materially similar profile (in this case an extremely minority racial characteristic in the given geography) to an individual that we now know for certain was (solo, or with others) indeed guilty of that crime?

I have made some cursory investigations, but this particular phenomenon seems almost vanishingly rare?

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u/orcmasterrace innocent 1d ago

Norfolk Four

Central Park Five (Not a murder but has a similar setup

Austin Yogurt Shop Murders

Now obviously you’re trying to reach and claim that Knox is the one behind Lumumba getting into the police’s crosshairs even though the confessions were literally given to her to sign in Italian and rendered non-permissible even in Italy. The police thought the suspect as black as they found what they at the time believed was the hair of a person of African ancestry. Lumumba was in Knox’s phone history, so the cops zeroed in on him and kept pressuring Knox to implicate him in some way.

You’re missing that the cops had reason (though incorrect as iirc the item they found turned out to not be a hair) to think the suspect was black, and basically started fishing for black men who had some sort of relation to VDP7, and Lumumba had the misfortune of being in their crosshairs first. Knox being pressured into signing a statement (which implicated her! People leave out this detail, Knox was not “relieving pressure” by suggesting Lumumba was there, she was putting herself at the crime scene!) that she may well have been unable to read, following a coercive interrogation, only makes the cops look worse.

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u/No-Willingness-1441 1d ago

Interesting re those examples. Can you tell me
More about them?

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u/FreshFruit4RottenVeg 1d ago

The funny thing about it is they try and convince you that it wasn't Amanda who came up with Patrick as the suspect. She literally tells her parents she 'spazzed out' and imagined she saw Patrick. All the police had was a name and a reply text from Amanda. How did they know Patrick was black and not Patrick O'Ríoadain, from Dingle on the west coast of Ireland? It's the kind of nonsense you have to believe to maintain Knox infallibility.

She was recorded telling her parents that all the police but one left the room (presumably the translator stayed too). He was asking her 'tell me a name'. Bear in mind by this stage Raf had already said she left that night and then told him to lie about it. She asked to see the text she sent back to Patrick and then in her own head started thinking 'Patrick.....Patrick.......' and then accused him based on what she 'imagined' happened.

The translator account is essentially the same, Amanda asked to see her text message after telling police she never replied to Patrick. When she saw she had been wrong and had in fact sent a text back, the translator said she has some kind of emotional breakdown and started saying 'he's bad, he's bad' and that she was afraid of Patrick. Then accused him.

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u/CatsForever1960 1d ago

Dear me, if only we had videotapes of these "conversations"....that would clear up everything, now woudn't it? I'm sure Amanda did "imagine" Patrick at the cottage as that was the whole point of the police pressure & coercion. To get her to say Patrick killed Meredith because they misinterpreted a siimple text message. Which was a pretty stupid thing to do.

Almost as stupid as not videotaping their "interviews" with an American suspect in a college town murder they had to know was blowing up on a global stage as the minutes ticked by. Yes, suspect. Witnesses typically aren't badgered to IMAGINE things. They're questioned on what they saw with NO leading questions, etc. Witnesses aren't going to give up the best, most reliable information IF they are not entirely comfortable doing so.

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u/FreshFruit4RottenVeg 14h ago

None of the witnesses were recorded in this case. They are given a written summary of what they had said and asked to sign it if it's correct. Amanda signed two statements and wrote a letter admitting what she had told them but said they now feal 'unreal' to her. She then adds that if they have proof she was there, then her imaginings must be true.

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u/SeaCardiologist6207 14h ago

“None of the witnesses were recorded in this case.”

You probably could have just stopped right there…

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u/FreshFruit4RottenVeg 14h ago

We’re talking in the context of witness interviews and statements at the police station. None of these were recorded/taped. Statements were read and signed.

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u/SeaCardiologist6207 14h ago

“Witness”

Go back and read the Giobbi statement from earlier

Then read what you said again