Mez: MORE OF THE WRIT -

The Meredith Kercher Murder Case -

There's an old aphorism in the U.S. that says: if a prosecutor is intent on prosecuting a case, a Grand Jury will (obligingly) indict a ham sandwich.

Judge Micheli has performed a function somewhat comparable to that of a Grand Jury. More of the content of his lengthy ruling has been brought to light. No doubt, it takes time to study and time to translate.

I have not read such a translation; I am simply forming an impression based on secondhand information.

Some of the evidence submitted for his evaluation he swept off the table. Most notably, he rejected the proposed contextual cultural influences such as Halloween and vampires.

Instead, his evaluation seems more chilling. He describes his preliminary, pre-trial impression of "absolute disregard," which we might interpret as an absence of empathy.

And he said he believes
the murder was not premeditated.

Then what was it? A crime of opportunity?

Why push a man off a train? Let's say you are riding on a train and you notice there is only one other passenger in the car. The thought occurs to you that you could push him off the train and no one would ever know. There are no witnesses. Why push him off the train - just because
you can?

There are a lot of wounds on the victim's body. It is unclear to me at this point how many of the 47 wounds are bruises and how many are actual puncture wounds or pricks drawing blood, but why so many wounds? How long would it take to inflict so many wounds by one person or by several people? How many times can you kill someone?

This is a macabre situation - cat burglars don't hang around to use residents as a voodoo doll. They swipe and they're outta there as quickly as possible.

The trial is expected to be more open in its process than the preliminary hearings were. I expect that this prosecutor still has some cards up his sleeve; I don't believe he has tipped his entire hand to us. I expect there could still be surprises emerging from all this. At least, we might be able to better understand what happened there.

:: Tom Kington in Perugia ::

...