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THE NEIGHBORS ARE WATCHING (2#) -

Meredith Kercher Murder Case -

# A new witness has now come forward who says he thinks he saw Knox and Sollecito outside the girls' cottage during the evening Mez was murdered at a point in time when they claim they were in Sollecito's home.

# Superwitness: Frank at Perugia Shock blog has posted a new entry with photos in which he explores this issue at a grassroots level.

:: new witness :: Local London ::

:: Frank in Perugia :: perma ::

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CLAIMS MEZ WAS ZONKED-OUT (2#) -
Meredith Kercher Murder Case -

She was in an alcohol-induced stupor when she died, according to court documents represented by Panorama magazine, supposedly containing the latest blood analysis, which will be be released tomorrow.

"To get to that level, Miss Kercher would have had to have drunk the equivalent of six pints of beer in the hours before her death."

Her friend Samantha Rodenhurst, 20, expressed surprise, contending that Meredith was not normally much of a drinker.

"Her friends said that Miss Kercher was sober when she left them to walk home."

But reporter Malcolm Moore does not state in his dispatch from Rome whether her blood was tested for "roofies" or other substances.

:: The Sun :: ..... and ..... :: Telegraph ::

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Al Qaeda: A 100 QUESTIONS (5#) -

# The Insidious Dr Z says that Sheik Osama bin Laden is alive and well, according to a new audio tape released online by Al-Sahab.

# But Erick Stakelbeck wants to
know: Boxers or Briefs? :: tweaky! ::

# The gist of it: "Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri described the United Nations as an enemy to Muslims and vowed attacks on Jews both inside and outside Israel in a statement posted on the Internet on Wednesday." [reut]

# Laura Mansfield ::comments::

# A Pakistani ::version:: - just checking.

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Bookish: SOME GOOD NEWS & NOTSO (6#) -

The good news is that Jhumpa Lahiri has a new book out. The notso good news is that this reviewer wasn't very keen on it. Unaccustomed Earth reviewed by Stefan Beck.

# Otto Penzler reminisces about author Phyllis A Whitney who died recently, notes NoirCon in Philadelphia (April 3-5), and spotlights a book of Mystery lists.

# "A fascination with cultural authority gone wrong" unites the stories of Cynthia Ozick's new opus, Dictation: A Quartet, reviewed by Benjamin Lytal.

# Adam (The Bookie) Begley goes around the bend keeping up with Skippy Bin Laden. In addition to Steve Coll's new book, he's also read Morgan Spurlock's fey search for Osama, which is the print companion to the movie.

# There's a rumor going round that the NY Observer, which already offers some book reviews, is planning an entire new section for them. And, in related chatter, they mention the Radar report that Tina Brown is joining up with Barry Diller to develop a new "aggregator website."

# And, finally, Spiegel interviews
Steve Coll. :: Recommended! ::

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FL PRESS NOTES -

# The Miami Herald Bad Fairy was out again today, trying to force you to register and give them your email address so they can bury you in a deluge of spam which is a corporate form of hate mail. I refuse to link to them when they do this.

#A legal battle between the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Cox syndicate which is a minority stockholder in the newspaper... began as a dispute over the millions the newspaper spends on local arts projects.

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BLOGGING NOTES -

We're in the New York Times
today in the World Section: Italy.

It may be only in the online
edition, but not on paper.

Quirky :-)

:: Headlines Around The Web ::
-- Top of Center Column --
-- Wednesday, April 2, 2008 --

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Bookish: SKIPPY BIN LADEN -

How Did He Get That Way?

Isn't that the $64 question . . .
And don't we all want to know . . .
aw, come on, you know you do . . .

A "massive" new book by Steve Coll encompasses
the entire Bin Laden Clan and Osama in context.

"There are 'millions' of Bin Ladens 'running around' and
'99.999999 percent of them are of the non-evil variety."

Yes, but one of them
named Osama operates a homicidal cult.

:: Reviewed here by Martin Sieff.

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Press: SPOOF TRIB (2#) -

For April Fool's Day, the Tribune company issued
a mock press release declaring that it would
rename itself ZellCoMediaEnterprises Inc

:: or ZCMEINC, according to the WSJ.

:: Mock Press Release ::

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MEZ: CADAVER CAM & updates - (6#) -
Meredith Kercher Murder Case -

# The Kercher family has expressed their distress that a TV program about this case shown last night at 11pm in Italy included some graphic images of Meredith's lifeless body.

The images were from a "leak" of documentation made by the forensic pathology crew (CSI) at the crime scene which clearly show the knife wound area of her neck and may have shown other exposed parts of her body, too.

The press reports disclose that her eyes were covered by "a mask," but no details of it are given. Was this a forensic mask? Or a Halloween mask? Was she wearing it when she died or did the CSI crew place it on the cadaver post mortem? Perhaps, her eyes were open in death. The grotesque horror of all this just increases over time.

::SkyNews:: ..... ::Guardian:: ..... ::Telegraph::

* * * * *
#The appeal was lost; trio must remain in custody.
............. Is anyone surprised by this?

* * * * *
# Frank, the local Blogger at Perugia Shock Blog reports that Foxy Knoxy will star in a movie directed by Spike Lee which will be shot on location in the Capanne Prison where she is incarcerated. Filming is scheduled to commence this coming May.

"As for the story, it is shrouded in mystery."

I can only guess it might go something like this:

Hot Lesbian Vampires Rock Italian Jail ;-)

For more details on this, go see Frank: [perma]

* * * * *
# On a more serious note: 48 Hours is scheduled to do a program on this case on Saturday, April 12th at 10pm. This program generally does high quality work. I watch it myself sometimes. Here's their squib about it:

"A 20-year-old honors student is being held in prison for the brutal murder of her roommate. Independent investigators and her family claim she’s being railroaded."

Looks like this case will be around for a while yet.

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MEZ: APPEAL update - (2#) -
Meredith Kercher Murder Case -

# Richard Owen in Rome reports that lawyers for the three principal suspects launched their appeals against continued detention at the Supreme Court today.

According to my understanding: The trio have been charged with preliminary charges; they can be held for up to a year before a formal Bill of Indictment is issued on the basis of which they would be prosecuted.

"Lawyers said a decision... on whether any of the suspects can be freed was expected later today or tomorrow."

* * * * *
# Meanwhile, Frank, the local Blogger in Perugia, adds some color to the situation. Among other things, he tells us:

"Panorama reported last week that luminol testing had revealed seven new stains of 'presumed blood substance' inside the house. Four of them are from bare feet and were found both in Amanda's room and in the hallway between Amanda and Meredith's bedrooms." [emphasis mine]

Try wrapping your mind around that!
Who walks around in blood in their bare feet?

* * * * *
+ I keep looking for the "helter-skelter" underlying all this - the unified field theory, if you will - the figure in the carpet - the rationale which would tie all this together.

What was this crime all about - sex, money or what?

Perhaps, this was the drug-addled way they chose to celebrate Halloween. And I still can't ignore the neck wound which is evocative of playing vampire.

I don't think the trio will be freed from detention. The crime scene looked like a maniac went wild there. I doubt whether any responsible public official would want to gamble on that happening again in Perugia.

There is, however, still room for reasonable doubt in my mind, insofar as whodunnit. The interloper Guede referred to could have been a drug dealer coming to visit one of the fellows downstairs and seeking payment for his services.

Well, stay tuned . . .

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MEZ CASE APPEAL -
Meredith Kercher Murder Case -

Judges in the higher Court of Cassation in Rome could rule tomorrow on requests to release the three principal suspects in the case: Mez roommate Amanda Knox from Seattle, Knox's boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede.

They were charged for the purpose of detainment and are currently being held in custody. Financial bond was not available to them due to the gravity of the charges which may involve aggressively violent homicide. All three deny wrongdoing.

In a process somewhat comparable to the American Grand Jury process, a panel of judges in Perugia ruled that there is sufficient evidence to warrant their detainment until a formal Bill of Indictment with particulars is issued. Under Italian law the prosecutors have a year to further investigate before they issue the formal bill of indictment.

Italian legal custom, apparently, can separate preliminary charges from the formal documentation of a writ of indictment. In practice, we seem have some room for discretion, too, for prosecutors to refine preliminary charges if they feel it necessary.

Thus, the three suspects have been
charged, but not formally indicted yet.

* * * * *
Meanwhile, the Italian Press has dubbed this a tabloid-type crime (giallo), implying it's a penny-dreadful or has grotesque qualities. Certainly, the crime scene was quite bloody.

The prosecutors' Big Question
has been: who was at the scene of the crime?

That house was not a closed box; the scene of that crime was porous. There were other people living in the house, such as some fellows downstairs. And it is possible there may have been some illegal drugs moving through or being cached in the house. This issue opens at least one other avenue for investigators to potentially explore.

Thus, the prosecutors' Big Question has not been nailed down definitively yet, and it remains to be seen whether others will be identified and/or placed there.

:: UK Press Association release ::

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Bookish: A LATE WEEKEND (11#) -

On Sundays, I usually like to peruse the Book Sections of various publications, but this Sunday morning I had trouble surfing the Net. About two-thirds of the times I would put in an address into my browser bar, the response was: it couldn't find the server. I tried to track down the problem, but never did. Thus, late . . .

# Interesting Times: Bill Deedes once served as the editor of the UK Telegraph, among many other things.

"Deedes is well remembered... as being the supposed model for Evelyn Waugh's William Boot, the mild and hapless rural journalist plucked by mistake for an important foreign assignment in the novel Scoop."

Maybe a bit too British for some
people, but sounds interesting anyway:

:: The Remarkable Lives of Bill Deedes
by Stephen Robinson; reviewed by Rod Liddle.
:: Stephen Bates at The Guardian reviews it, too.

# Contemporary Crime Gone Global:
The author "tells a grisly story very well."
:: McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers
by Misha Glenny; reviewed by Max Hastings.

# Bernie Gunther moved to Argentina in 1950, but didn't leave the Nazis and "The Jewish Problem" behind, it appears. A glowing review by Jake Kerridge for Philip Kerr's new mystery novel, A Quiet Flame.

# Some historical crimes novels
:: reviewed by Lucy Davies.

# Om Redux: Hippies of the Sixties head down
the trail to India in order to find themselves.
:: The Paradise Trail by Duncan Campbell.

# He teaches history at a Midwestern College, but Lebanese-American Toufic El Rassi, 30, always loved to draw. This is the debut of his graphic novel, Arab in America.

# Our Story by Tobias Wolff
:: is reviewed by Kyle Smith.

# Mystery maestro Otto Penzler writes about The Big Read dedicated to Dashiell Hammett and the diverse array of events scheduled.

# The writer laments the loss of the
Harry Potter clock at King's Cross station.

# The Oxford Literary Festival 2008 [times]

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