UPDATE, 7/14/08
I received a message from Chris Mellas that clarified the "Mr Anonymous" message below. Chris Mellas did not send the message -- that much is clear from the message he did send tonight. He doesn't seem to realize that I sometimes shed a journalistic stance in this blog and express subjective opinions, but overall his message was well-considered and clearly explained some things. In short, he had no idea I'd received such a note. As I surmised -- and I could have made this even more clear than I did -- someone who thought they were perhaps doing Amanda Knox and her family a favor did the opposite. I will make amendments to this post later today. I'd do it now, but it's simply very late and I'm not at my best. I wanted Mr. Mellas and readers who followed this post to know that I'd received some clarification. I owe it to Mr. Mellas to acknowledge that, and I appreciate him taking the time to write to me. I'd write him back personally, but the same caveat about me being tired and not good for more than this paragraph applies there, too.
Original blog post
From The Seattle Times/AP: Prosecutors in Perugia, Italy are formally requesting that Ivory Coast native Rudy Hermann Guede, Seattleite Amanda Knox and Italian student Raffaele Sollecito be sent to trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher in November, 2007. The trio may also be formally charged with "sexual violence" and theft.
Now that these indictments have been requested, a judge will decide on granting the prosecutor's request. If the decision is against the defense, the trio will be ordered to stand trial. Hearings may begin in September.
The Italian prosecutors believe Guede, Knox and Sollecito participated in strangling and stabbing Meredith Kercher. The Associated Press has reported that court documents state that Guede "engaged in sexual violence" against the victim, and was assisted by Knox and Sollecito.
Prosecutors believe Knox and Sollecito later tried to cover everyones' tracks by making it look as though the residence Kercher shared with Knox and two other women was burglarized.
I dread writing any more about this case. But I feel somehow obligated, in spite of the fact that the people who want to talk about it online often seem to come a little unhinged about the whole thing. For example, Amanda Knox's stepfather, Chris Mellas, owns his own ISP -- it shows up in web statistics as "Chris Mellas." Either Mellas or a co-worker, or both, have been all over blog comments and related message board discussions every day, sometimes all day long, for months. And while I've asked other commenters to be civil with Mr. Mellas in the past, they aren't.
Then again, neither is he. For instance, I recently received this message, from "Mr Anonymous," with a fake e-mail address:
Second, the writer should have written "libelous" if they wanted to be clearly understood, not slanderous. That said, the very savvy admin of that board -- I set it up and am still an administrator, but she handles the day-to-day, for which I am eternally grateful -- Skeptical Bystander, is acutely aware of libelous language and what constitutes a libelous remark online, and she's worked mighty hard to delete any posts that might be taken as libelous off that board. From what I've seen, she has succeeded. (I set the board up with the Kercher murder case in mind. I got really tired of open threads about it -- you can't "close" a Haloscan-hosted comment thread without hiding all the previous comments.)
Third, it's rather pointless to try and be "Mr Anonymous" in a contact form submission if your IP address tracks back to this:
Then again, I'm still flummoxed that people bother with online discussions at all, but I'm the blogger who generally doesn't like blogs anymore and rarely takes them too seriously, so what do I know?
Here's the funny thing about me calling out Mr. Mellas or one of his associates above: I haven't been solidly plunked down in the "Amanda did it" camp for quite some time. When I wrote this article for Radar Magazine I wasn't too sure about Amanda. By the time I was done with the article and the blog entries I wrote around the same time, I was pretty damned suspicious. The fact is, Amanda Knox does seem unbalanced, possibly mentally ill. Rudy Guede comes across as just plain nuts, and Sollecito, of the three, comes across as the most cold and calculating. But none of those things make them killers.
I believe the intense focus on the pretty college girl from Seattle has been unbalanced and overheated. It started with the British tabs and Italian papers going bananas over her made-for-a true-crime TV movie web persona: Foxy Knoxy, Amanda's own screen name, self-chosen, was like a gift to the tabloid editors in London. Saved them the trouble of coming up with something similar on their own (and make no mistake -- given time, they would have come up with something very close to that nickname). Amanda's strange, over-written short stories in her blog dug the hole deeper, even though taken in context there's nothing really that strange about them.
Basically, in the 8 months since Meredith Kercher was brutally murdered in her room in Perugia, all sense of direction in the media coverage of the case has been lost. Even a prominent newsmagazine I have worked with in the past did a piece about Knox that seemed heavily skewed in favor of the argument that Knox has been railroaded. The thing was, they made a pretty convincing case -- enough for me to wonder.
So here's where I stand: I have no idea what happened that night in Perugia. At the moment, I feel the possibilities are too many to list here. This is a reasonable question: has Amanda Knox been unfairly singled out in the coverage of this case? My answer is yes. Also reasonable: do the allegations of orgies, of sexual violence, play a role in the public interest in the Kercher murder? I certainly think so. To me, that automatically knocks all media coverage of the case off-balance. And it will never be balanced again (if that was even possible in the first place).
I've said this before, but it bears repeating -- I have no idea if I will write about this again. I don't like the contentiousness that pops up in the comments (which is saying something, considering just how contentious comments can truly get on this blog in general), I don't like the sneaky crap I detailed above. I'll put it this way -- I may not write more blog entries here about the still-mysterious and horrifying murder of Meredith Kercher. Frankly, it's the kind of case that could consume both me and blog space -- space I could devote to talking about other crimes of interest.
From here on out, I'll consider doing paid writing about the case, but that will likely be it. I do admit I'd be interested in following events as they unfold if and when this goes to trial. "Circus" may be far too weak a word to describe that kind of media frenzy.
Comments are always welcome, but you can also just go register for the True Crime Weblog Message Board and post your thoughts, opinions, and ideas there -- you have more room to format text and just pontificate in general, there.
And to Chris Mellas or his "friend" (quotes intended, since I don't think any friend who would send such a note was actually doing Mellas a favor) -- if you have a problem with any post on that message board, it's really simple: send me a link, quote the offensive portion, and ask for it to be removed. If it meets the definition of libel, it will damn sure be gone. If any posters are repeat offenders, they will be banned. That goes for comments on this post as well.
I received a message from Chris Mellas that clarified the "Mr Anonymous" message below. Chris Mellas did not send the message -- that much is clear from the message he did send tonight. He doesn't seem to realize that I sometimes shed a journalistic stance in this blog and express subjective opinions, but overall his message was well-considered and clearly explained some things. In short, he had no idea I'd received such a note. As I surmised -- and I could have made this even more clear than I did -- someone who thought they were perhaps doing Amanda Knox and her family a favor did the opposite. I will make amendments to this post later today. I'd do it now, but it's simply very late and I'm not at my best. I wanted Mr. Mellas and readers who followed this post to know that I'd received some clarification. I owe it to Mr. Mellas to acknowledge that, and I appreciate him taking the time to write to me. I'd write him back personally, but the same caveat about me being tired and not good for more than this paragraph applies there, too.
Original blog post
From The Seattle Times/AP: Prosecutors in Perugia, Italy are formally requesting that Ivory Coast native Rudy Hermann Guede, Seattleite Amanda Knox and Italian student Raffaele Sollecito be sent to trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher in November, 2007. The trio may also be formally charged with "sexual violence" and theft.
Now that these indictments have been requested, a judge will decide on granting the prosecutor's request. If the decision is against the defense, the trio will be ordered to stand trial. Hearings may begin in September.
The Italian prosecutors believe Guede, Knox and Sollecito participated in strangling and stabbing Meredith Kercher. The Associated Press has reported that court documents state that Guede "engaged in sexual violence" against the victim, and was assisted by Knox and Sollecito.
Prosecutors believe Knox and Sollecito later tried to cover everyones' tracks by making it look as though the residence Kercher shared with Knox and two other women was burglarized.
I dread writing any more about this case. But I feel somehow obligated, in spite of the fact that the people who want to talk about it online often seem to come a little unhinged about the whole thing. For example, Amanda Knox's stepfather, Chris Mellas, owns his own ISP -- it shows up in web statistics as "Chris Mellas." Either Mellas or a co-worker, or both, have been all over blog comments and related message board discussions every day, sometimes all day long, for months. And while I've asked other commenters to be civil with Mr. Mellas in the past, they aren't.
Then again, neither is he. For instance, I recently received this message, from "Mr Anonymous," with a fake e-mail address:
I have seen several messages on your TC Message blog that covers the Meredith Kercher murder.First, I have no idea what a "TC Message blog" is, but I'm pretty sure the writer meant the The True Crime Weblog Message Board, which in spite of its generic name really seems only devoted to discussion of the murder of Meredith Kercher. It's also not a weblog at all, but a message board. The difference between a blog and a message board are pretty clear to anyone who has been using the Internet for a while. At least I thought so.
I intend to make more information available to the appropriate people that such slanderous remarks are being made and/or implied on your site in hopes that their on going action against other media outlets will include yours. Those who reside in specific locations who continue to make slanderous remarks apparently believe that they are protected based on the form of your blog. Apparently they find this to be an untruth.
I will further support any action taken against such remarks. Steve Huff has allowed this site to carry on without regard to proper oversight which he as well as his moderators will be held liable.
Second, the writer should have written "libelous" if they wanted to be clearly understood, not slanderous. That said, the very savvy admin of that board -- I set it up and am still an administrator, but she handles the day-to-day, for which I am eternally grateful -- Skeptical Bystander, is acutely aware of libelous language and what constitutes a libelous remark online, and she's worked mighty hard to delete any posts that might be taken as libelous off that board. From what I've seen, she has succeeded. (I set the board up with the Kercher murder case in mind. I got really tired of open threads about it -- you can't "close" a Haloscan-hosted comment thread without hiding all the previous comments.)
Third, it's rather pointless to try and be "Mr Anonymous" in a contact form submission if your IP address tracks back to this:
CustName: CHRIS MELLASAnonymous, vague threats just make you look sneaky, Mr. Mellas. If someone else sent that message without your knowledge, you should have a talk with them. If you or anyone else in Amanda Knox's circle of family and friends are truly concerned about her plight (and I am sure you are), you might want to reconsider moves like that, in general. I think it's loathsome that something like PR ever enters the equation in cases like this, but it does. Yammering, snarking, arguing, and threatening online is bad PR. The way that "anonymous" message was written in general was bad PR. I sure as hell would not want the IP address on something borderline incoherent like the message quoted above to track back to an ISP with my name on it.
Address: [Redacted] 108TH AVENUE NORTHEAST SUITE [Redacted]
City: BELLEVUE
StateProv: WA
PostalCode: 98004
Country: US
RegDate: 2005-11-30
Updated: 2005-11-30
Then again, I'm still flummoxed that people bother with online discussions at all, but I'm the blogger who generally doesn't like blogs anymore and rarely takes them too seriously, so what do I know?
Here's the funny thing about me calling out Mr. Mellas or one of his associates above: I haven't been solidly plunked down in the "Amanda did it" camp for quite some time. When I wrote this article for Radar Magazine I wasn't too sure about Amanda. By the time I was done with the article and the blog entries I wrote around the same time, I was pretty damned suspicious. The fact is, Amanda Knox does seem unbalanced, possibly mentally ill. Rudy Guede comes across as just plain nuts, and Sollecito, of the three, comes across as the most cold and calculating. But none of those things make them killers.
I believe the intense focus on the pretty college girl from Seattle has been unbalanced and overheated. It started with the British tabs and Italian papers going bananas over her made-for-a true-crime TV movie web persona: Foxy Knoxy, Amanda's own screen name, self-chosen, was like a gift to the tabloid editors in London. Saved them the trouble of coming up with something similar on their own (and make no mistake -- given time, they would have come up with something very close to that nickname). Amanda's strange, over-written short stories in her blog dug the hole deeper, even though taken in context there's nothing really that strange about them.
Basically, in the 8 months since Meredith Kercher was brutally murdered in her room in Perugia, all sense of direction in the media coverage of the case has been lost. Even a prominent newsmagazine I have worked with in the past did a piece about Knox that seemed heavily skewed in favor of the argument that Knox has been railroaded. The thing was, they made a pretty convincing case -- enough for me to wonder.
So here's where I stand: I have no idea what happened that night in Perugia. At the moment, I feel the possibilities are too many to list here. This is a reasonable question: has Amanda Knox been unfairly singled out in the coverage of this case? My answer is yes. Also reasonable: do the allegations of orgies, of sexual violence, play a role in the public interest in the Kercher murder? I certainly think so. To me, that automatically knocks all media coverage of the case off-balance. And it will never be balanced again (if that was even possible in the first place).
I've said this before, but it bears repeating -- I have no idea if I will write about this again. I don't like the contentiousness that pops up in the comments (which is saying something, considering just how contentious comments can truly get on this blog in general), I don't like the sneaky crap I detailed above. I'll put it this way -- I may not write more blog entries here about the still-mysterious and horrifying murder of Meredith Kercher. Frankly, it's the kind of case that could consume both me and blog space -- space I could devote to talking about other crimes of interest.
From here on out, I'll consider doing paid writing about the case, but that will likely be it. I do admit I'd be interested in following events as they unfold if and when this goes to trial. "Circus" may be far too weak a word to describe that kind of media frenzy.
Comments are always welcome, but you can also just go register for the True Crime Weblog Message Board and post your thoughts, opinions, and ideas there -- you have more room to format text and just pontificate in general, there.
And to Chris Mellas or his "friend" (quotes intended, since I don't think any friend who would send such a note was actually doing Mellas a favor) -- if you have a problem with any post on that message board, it's really simple: send me a link, quote the offensive portion, and ask for it to be removed. If it meets the definition of libel, it will damn sure be gone. If any posters are repeat offenders, they will be banned. That goes for comments on this post as well.
