police expert who conducted the original investigation in the Amanda Knox case insists there was no contamination on crucial pieces of evidence linking the American student and her co-defendant to the murder of her British roommate. Patrizia Stefanoni examined DNA traces in the aftermath of the 2007 killing of Meredith Kercher.
Knox and her co-defendant and one-time boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of sexually assaulting and killing Meredith Kercher in the apartment that Knox and the 21-year-old Briton shared while studying in Perugia. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison; Sollecito to 25. Both deny wrongdoing and have appealed the December 2009 verdict.
An independent review of DNA traces in the case found that much of the evidence collected in the original investigation fell below international standards and may have led to contamination of the samples.
The review especially focused on some traces of DNA In the first trial, prosecutors maintained that Knox’s DNA was found on the knife’s handle and Kercher’s DNA was found on the blade. They also say Sollecito’s DNA was found on the clasp of Kercher’s bra, mixed with the victim’s.
Carla Vecchiotti, one expert questioned Monday over the extraction of DNA profiles from the bra clasp, said the data was so mixed that a very high number of genetic profiles could be extracted, depending how one combined the data.
