Home
 Case summary
 Flawed forensics
 Statements to police
 The real Amanda
 Articles and links
 Media kit
 Contact us

Was there a cleanup after the murder?


broken drainpipe
The drainpipe beneath Raffaele's kitchen sink, minus the part that came loose on the night of November 1
No. This is a myth that the authorities have nurtured, both in the traditional media and on the Internet, without providing any significant detail about what exactly was cleaned, how it was done, or what evidence shows that it happened.

None of the prosecution's witnesses testified explicitly during the trial that a cleanup took place. Some hinted at such activity, however, because they expressed the opinion that prints and stains revealed with luminol were residual bloodstains connected to the murder.

Click here to read about the luminol results.

Such insinuation without proof is typical of the case against Amanda and Raffaele. If the prosecutor has evidence that somebody cleaned the crime scene, why didn't he lay it out clearly and systematically?

The obvious answer is that he has no evidence to present. Let's take a look at some of the specific fallacies that have arisen with regard to the alleged cleanup.

shoe print tags
Tags marking blood traces, seen from the entrance foyer looking toward the victim's room

MYTH: The broken drainpipe in Raffaele's kitchen was a cover story for cleaning activity related to the murder.

On the night of November 1, 2007, when Raffaele and Amanda were washing dishes at his apartment, a drainpipe under the sink came loose, and water spilled out on the kitchen floor. Raffaele didn't have a mop, so he used towels to dam in the water for the time being.

The next morning, Amanda went to the cottage to take a shower. She returned to Raffaele's place with a mop to clean up the water in his apartment. After they did this and had a quick breakfast, they both went back to the cottage, taking the mop with them.

Much speculation has grown around these banal events. Insiders have known all along that the police investigated what Raffaele and Amanda told them, and every detail was confirmed to be true. But suspicion has continued to linger on the Internet. Perhaps now that the prosecution has wrapped up its case without any significant discussion of the broken drainpipe, we can close the book on a misconception that has no factual basis.

MYTH: Someone cleaned the cottage with bleach.

This story has its origins in the events surrounding the drainpipe as well as misinformation fed to the media. On November 19, 2007, Richard Owen reported for the UK Times that police had found receipts showing purchases of bleach on the morning after the murder. The information was specific: one alleged purchase was made at 8:30, and a second was made at 9:15. But in fact, no such receipts were ever found. Then, in a November 25, 2007, report, Owen quoted an apparently official source as saying that the entire cottage, except for Meredith's room and the bathroom she shared with Amanda, had been "thoroughly cleaned with bleach."

At the trial, the prosecution presented no evidence that anyone cleaned the cottage with bleach, and video of the crime scene strongly undermines such a claim. Along with the latent footprints in the corridor that were revealed with luminol, investigators found a number of faint but visible blood traces matching Rudy Guede's shoe. It would have been hard to mop the floor without destroying these blood traces.

MYTH: Amanda tried to remove all her fingerprints throughout the cottage.

Prosecutor Mignini himself is the source of this misconception. A November 28, 2007, AP story carried in USA Today noted that just one fingerprint belonging to Amanda had been found at the cottage and quoted the prosecutor as follows: "It is reasonable to hypothesize that she herself felt the need to eliminate the traces of her presence from an apartment in which she lived."

At the trial, the prosecutor's own fingerprint expert, Giuseppe Privitera, flatly refuted this hypothesis. He said fingerprints tend to get smudged, often it is hard to find good ones even of someone who lives at the scene of an investigation, and nothing he found at the cottage suggested that any effort had been made to remove fingerprints intentionally.

MYTH: Someone used the washing machine to destroy evidence.

This is another case where the police misinformed the media. In Richard Owen's November 25 report mentioned above, he says police heard the washing machine spinning to the end of its cycle when they arrived at the cottage. Other media reports repeated this claim with various embellishments.

Early in the trial, the prosecutor seemed to be aware that the washing machine was a matter of interest to people discussing the case on the Internet, because he made a point of asking several witnesses about it. But nothing of value emerged from these questions. Insiders have known for a long time that the police examined the contents of the washing machine and found nothing incriminating.