Amanda Knox
29.10.2015 um 20:48
Jill Giannotta
Gestern um 12:56
AMANDA KNOX'S EMAIL HOME 3rd NOVEMBER 2007.
One of the major developments in criminology in recent years has been that of forensic linguistics, used as a determinant of truthfulness in written and verbal statements. The development of this technique does not permit police to determine with absolute certainty that someone is lying, but it does provide very useful clues as to where an interviewer could concentrate the questioning.
I am drawing on my own knowledge of language patterns, which I employ daily in my job, but more especially on the work of Prof Malcolm Coultard, Dr Paul Eckman, Dr Rachel Adelson. I intend to apply their techniques and findings to the email home written by Amanda Knox on the 3rd of Nov 2007.
It is interesting to note that the email was written at 3.25 am after a long day of questioning at the Questura. It only came into the hands of the Perugia police after a recipient in Seattle took it to Seattle Police, and it was forwarded to Perugia and translated by Anna Donnino and Aida Colantone, into Italian.
Please note that this is a LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS, not an attempt to compare what Knox said in later statements or to discuss contradictions. We have done all that before. What we have NOT done, is apply specialist linguistic knowledge which has proved sustainable irrespective of social class, race, gender or intelligence.
What forensic linguists look for are:-
-Repetition of words or phrases which might even be subconscious.
-Use of WE rather than I at crucial stages - implies unity and cooperation with others.
-Jumps in time and change of tenses, called temporal lacunae. This often indicates a sensitive time period where information is withheld.
- Padding out the narrative with verifiable truthful events, paying less attention to crucial points.
-Dramatic changes in language style.
-Use of connective clauses, like "to be honest", "I am trying to remember clearly"- indicators of deceptiveness.
If we apply these parameters to the email, many traits are observable. I do not intend to give multiple examples of each indicator.
The most telling of all these indicators is the padding out of the narrative with verifiable yet inconsequential detail. We are treated to a lengthy passage of who ate, came into the house, who showered, did laundry on the afternoon of the 1st of November, but when we look at the evening itself we have , "WE DIDNT GO OUT" . There is a jump in time span ( temporal lacunae) , and apart from that one sentence we have the evening described vaguely, but in anticipation, not in real time, or as a consecutive event.
"me and raffael went to his house to watch movies and after to eat dinner and generally spend the evening and night indoors "
"WE DIDNT GO OUT" is followed immediately by reference to the morning after. This is a big red flag. An honest account might have read:-
"WE STAYED IN, ( no negative) , made dinner together, washed up, during which time we discovered a leak. Raff's Dad called, we watched a movie ...."
So we have not even a sketchy basic account of the most significant period of time. Even the leak of water is referred to in retrospect. Anyone with basic forensic linguistic knowledge would know that there is an attempt at deception here. The afternoon is padded with detail, and yet the night of the murder is dismissed in one short sentence concerning what they DIDN'T do.
Now we skip straight to the next morning, and to " the next morning I woke up" and then the tense switches from the simple past to the pluperfect ( HAD) so Knox is now referring to the night before retrospectively, mentioning a leak which involves yet more water and more showering. If we haven't noticed by now, another determinant has come into play- that of repetition of water imagery. Is she subconsciously wanting to cleanse? Is she trying to convince the reader of the normality of the situation she is to describe? I really don't know. What I do know is that hitherto we have the day before in strict chronology, but now the tenses switch and only sketchy details are provided, which absolutely convinces me beyond any doubt that she is hiding something.
I do not intend to analyse every subsequent sentence. However, we have more padding about life in Perugia, the friends, the guitar playing, as if nothing had ever happened to Meredith. Here she uses the technique of unity and cooperation, portraying a life where she is an accepted part of a unified group.
( It " kind of sucks" that she has lost a month's rent. Note that Meredith's throat was slit, yet Knox's empathy is only for herself. Her concern is for herself, her being cold, or being hungry and eating something substantial. This is narcissistic behaviour. Most people would have trouble eating or sleeping had their best friend been brutally murdered. Instead, she is front and centre.)
But back to the linguistic analysis.
After the illusion of unity, we are directed to the real and stated purpose of the email- an account of how she found her room mate murdered.
And here is where another determinant of deception is employed. The style of writing changes from a narrative of events to an explanation and a reasoning for her strange behaviour. Please note I am NOT commenting on the strangeness of the behaviour, but on the language clues exhibited by this justification.
"and meredith door was closed, which TO ME weant she was sleeping. ( my capitals.) Here we have a defence of her own position because she knows she has fudged this issue and is likely to be questioned on it again, as it is not congruent with Filomena's version.
I am not concerned here with the actual credibility of the account of the following day, but once again we have the repetition, so common in deceptive behaviour. How many times do we have to be told about open or shut doors, or about showering and drying hair? This repetition is not integral to the account, which by now has become a justification of her lack of worry. This should set alarm bells ringing, because the items she feels compelled to repeat, would definitely be viewed by a trained interviewer as very significant in the narrative.
"im going to tell this really slowly to get
everything right so just have patience with me."
is easy to spot as a deceptive tool. A truthful person tells what he or she knows, with no need for embellishment, so why does she have to tell this really slowly? To remember the details she gave the police, and concentrate hard on the fabricated story, of course. A truthful person has no need to tell a story slowly, because there is only the truth to remember. An innocent person has no need to explain WHY they did something- they state simply an truthfully WHAT they did.
Then we encounter another marker. The "unity" card is played yet again, implying that she, Raffaele and Filomena were acting in complete accord with each other, reacting as one to the emergency.
At the Police station it is WE again, implying the level of unity between them. This "unity" extends even as far as the dead victim who supposedly borrowed condoms , possibly liked anal sex and who had a jar of Vaseline beside her bed. This is Knox telling the email recipients that she and Meredith behaved in much the same sexually liberated way. It is totally irrelevant to the narrative.
Note the use of the word "apparently" to describe the position in which Meredith was found. It seems quite normal, until you remove that word. A non deceptive account has no need for it, but "apparently" distances Knox from the scene, and shows her desire to stress that she was not aware of this fact until someone else told her.
The last sentence I intend to comment on is this one:-
".i have to get this off my chest because its pressing down on me and it helps to know that someone besides me knows..."
WHAT is pressing down on Knox exactly? Certainly not grief or even anger at Meredith's death. This is obvious from her self preoccupation. Is it the inevitable interrogation by the police who will doubtless concentrate on the areas she has attempted to explain away? Or is the enormity of the crime and her involvement in it which is "pressing down"? This would accord with the banging her ears with her fists, described as a kind of breakdown by those present.
There are many other signs of deception contained in this email which I have chosen to ignore in order to keep this post to a reasonable length. I will just end by adding that these traits, observable here, are carried through by Knox in statements, testimony, diaries and her own book.
The only addition is the progression to complete amnesia when all other explanation fails. In the words of Prof Coultard : " Failure to remember is immediately flagged as deceptive."
This email has always haunted me, and convinces me that although Amanda probably did not strike the fatal blow, she was almost certainly present during the vicious attack on Meredith, and most certainly was concealing vital evidence.
diese Email soll laut der pro Schuld-Menschen beweisen,das Amanda am Mord beteiligt war.
Jill Giannotta ist ein pro-schuld Mensch
möchte mich entschuldigen,aber ich habe es leider nur in Englisch.