Talk:Murder of Meredith Kercher

My revert

Moved from User talk:HelenOnline § Murder of Meredith Kercher

 – Moved from my user talk page. HelenOnline 11:52, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, why did you feel the need to revert the information posted in regards to the above topic? As both statements were legally true. Amanda Knox was found GUILTY by not 1 but 2 high courts in Italy and is wanted on charges of murdering Meredith Kercher. Her current whereabouts in the US are unknown, due to the extradition order placed by the Italian courts to the US supreme court. Was Wiki not the place for truth? and not just a biased opinion of a Knox fan??????????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fleetzy (talk • contribs) 10:56, 29 May 2014 UTC)

@Fleetzy: As stated in my edit summary "rv undue, rv unsourced" (incidentally you should try adding one if you don't want your edits reverted), I reverted your edit for the following reasons:

1. I removed Amanda Knox's name from the opening sentence as Knox was not the only person tried and found guilty of the murder (there were three of them and all their details are already covered later in the article lead). Emphasising her name, and her name only, in the opening sentence is what we call undue emphasis violating Wikipedia's core neutral point of view policy.
2. I removed your unsourced statement that "Knox has subsequently refused to return to Italy and currently is in hiding in the USA." as it violates Wikipedia's core verifiability policy. Wikipedia content is based on verifiability, not truth. We take this policy especially seriously when talking about living people.

Please note that suggesting another editor is biased, especially without presenting supporting evidence in an appropriate forum on Wikipedia, could be considered a personal attack which is not allowed on Wikipedia and could lead to sanctions against you. HelenOnline 11:48, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

It is verifiable...[1] & [2] for starters... --Nozzer71 (talk) 17:23, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

The entry states that Knox & Sollecito were exonerated and that the court went out of their way to proclaim them innocent with nothing to do with the murder. This is untrue. Knox & Sollecito were acquitted under paragraph 2 of article 530 of the Italian Criminal Procedure Code, which is an "insufficient evidence" acquittal, which the court were not legally authorized to do as they were viewing the case on its merits, which had already been covered at their trial and appeal. The Supreme Court only had the legal authority to send the case back to a lower appellate court as they could only rule on points of law, such as a legal, procedural or systematic error that occurred at their trial/appeal. They were actually in violation of article 620 & artice 617 by acquitting. Wikipedia should strive for accuracy whenever possible and with respect, accuracy is not being observed or applied in this entry. (Jimjoneskoolaid 28/07/15 17.32)

Weasel words

I have tagged a sentence with weasel terms. The ruling did not come as a surprise to everyone, so it is someone's POV and referring to unnamed "experts" is a classic weasel technique. Someone else removed it as "biased nonsense". Rhowryn has seen fit to restore it without tags without addressing the issues raised. HelenOnline 08:49, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

1) The only person "surprised" in the particular source cited is Kercher's mother. 2) Even if a source uses weasel terms, it does not mean we can. We do not follow the lead of the news media, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a newspaper. HelenOnline 08:56, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough. My objection was that the news article did provide source, but I did wonder who they were referring to as "legal experts". I reverted the removal mostly out of objection to the edit summary of "biased nonsense", which itself isn't exactly a pinnacle of non-bias. Rhowryn (talk) 04:12, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Lead

I think the current lead goes into a lot of details that an average reader would get lost reading. I think we need to have a bit more of an inverted pyramid style, so the very first part has the most important parts right away. Those important parts would be that Kercher was murdered, Knox and Sollecito were accused, convicted and ultimately exonerated, Guede was also convicted but there is no doubt of his guilt, media circus. The stuff about staged break in, legalese, etc. can all just be covered in the full article. DreamGuy (talk) 16:52, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Rewriting an article of this size can be, speaking from experience, a very time-consuming and arduous. If you'd like to do it, I don't think anyone will object, but they probably won't help out much either. It's not like the old days on WP anymore, when it was easier to get people to help out with significant article improvement. Cla68 (talk) 01:47, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

It may be worth exploring whether or not to start from the version of the article after the rewrite following the last exoneration. The current version is so problematic that I gave up on it long ago.LedRush (talk) 02:50, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that this article deserves revision, if only because for the most part it is another take on the Amanda Knox article. However, I will not venture to make substantial revisions to this article while the relatives of the victim are reeling in the knowledge that the Italian judicial system has thus far declared that the one convicted murderer did not act alone and that all the prosecutors' other suspects have been exonerated. Perhaps when Italy’s Court of Cassation has made its reasoning public, that would be the time for a major revision.

Whether the convicted murderer had accomplices or not, I’ll add that a lot of people have got away with murder. That’s not much consolation for Meredith Kercher’s family, but it shouldn’t reflect unduly on those who have been named, shamed and exonerated.

As for justice, only God knows. JoeMCMXLVII (talk) 21:43, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

JoeMCMXLVII, That the 'Italian judicial system has thus far declared multiple attackers is wrong. Knox, Sollecito and Guede were arraigned before judge Micheli in Sept 2008 to decide if they should be sent for trial. The prosecution charges against Guede were clearly framed to implicate Knox and Sollecito as the primary offenders because although all three were charged with acting together in the murder, Guede was not charged with having a knife or faking a break in. Guede opted to be tried Mechelli heard the prosecution's case that Knox Sollecito and Guede had committed the murder, and in the same Oct 2008 ruling found Guede guilty and sent Knox and Sollecito for trial. Micheli's report followed the prosecution in almost everything. It ruled out Guede might have been a lone killer who had got in by simply knocking on the entry door at 11pm and attacking Kercher when she opened it to him (she knew Guede as a pal of her boyfriend) and then faking a burglary to mislead investigators. The 2015 Italian supreme court decision means the aforementioned scenario is most certainly not ruled out.Overagainst (talk) 17:18, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

User:DreamGuy, I don't agree we can say Knox and Sollecito were accused, convicted and ultimately exonerated in the lead before mentioning Guede. Guede was long ago found to have committed the murder and exhausted his appeals. This is a BLP for Knox and Sollecito who were never convicted in that sense, and the international publicity and criticism over their prosecution is the main notability of the case.Overagainst (talk) 17:18, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

User:LedRush Guede had a different type of trial and his conviction was made definitive years ago. Knox and RS were never definitively convicted (convicted in the US sense) and exonerated only in 2015. As the article is about the murder and not AK's travails it really should not have all very much about Amanda Knox in it. Unfortunately there were people who insisted on emphasising that she had been "convicted"implying it was in an analogous sense to being found guilty of murder in a US jury trial, and there was a need for balance. Now that Knox and Sollecito are definitely acquitted the AK part of this article can be greatly condensed.Overagainst (talk) 17:18, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Except that reliable sources still tie Knox inextricably to this case. The article should reflect that. Otherwise you're POV-ing. 86.42.95.224 (talk) 09:56, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I hate the lead. Tell the narrative as best as possible, and fill in the details later on in the article. "On (date), (victim) did x, y and z with persons a, b and c and next day their body was discovered.173.192.170.71 (talk) 05:35, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Autopsy

In the section Autopsy, the final sentence makes no sense. How are the reviewers disagreeing? If Lalli meant that there was no sexual motive, being instead robbery or something else, this needs to be made clear so the reader can see why they disagreed with him. Akld guy (talk) 06:34, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Patrick Lumumba

Details on the false accusation of Lumumba seemed to have disappeared from the article, so I readded them. Saying that Knox was "exonerated" is not true; her conviction over her false accusation of Lumumba was upheld by the top court. I've added a note on that in the article and in the intro. Cla68 (talk) 01:42, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Unclear sentence

I've finished copyediting Murder of Meredith Kercher. I have a question about just one sentence. It's this sentence, which appears in the section Murder of Meredith Kercher#Alarm raised:

• Subsequently, the Polizia Postale arrived, having already traced two mobile phones found in a garden near to Via della Pergola 7.

There's something wrong with this sentence. It's definitely not clear. Did the police trace the two phones to residents of Via della Pergola 7? Or is the sentence not saying to what address the phones were traced, and just saying that the garden was near Via della Pergola 7? I read in another section that those mobile phones belonged to Meredith Kercher, so perhaps they did trace the phones to Kercher's address. Which one do you think it should be --

A. Subsequently, the Polizia Postale arrived, having already traced two mobile phones found in a nearby garden to Via della Pergola 7. [ = traced the phones to that address]

B. Subsequently, the Polizia Postale arrived, having already traced two mobile phones that had been found in a garden located near Via della Pergola 7. [ = traced the phones, but not saying to whom or to what address; just saying the phones were found in a garden, and the garden was near that address]

If the second version is correct, it's a little odd to say the police traced the phones but not say to whom or to what address the phones were traced. I think it should probably be Version A, but the source needs to be checked. Corinne (talk) 16:08, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

If memory serves, it's A. I suspect it may be clear in an earlier version. Rothorpe (talk) 19:51, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

10:53, 1 Dec 2007 is the first mention of one of the phones being registered to Kercher. It's sourced to the Times, which is closed to me; perhaps you know how to get at the source. Rothorpe (talk) 20:16, 5 December 2015 (UTC)