The Bathmat Footprint

 Share 

Crime scene picture of bathmat from the small bathroom.

One of the pieces of forensic evidence found in the cottage was a bare footprint, apparently in diluted blood, on the bathmat in the small bathroom. Three samples taken from the bathmat were confirmed as Meredith's blood. The footprint was measured and compared with prints taken from the right feet of Knox, Sollecito and Guede. The court examined the measurements in detail and concluded that the print was a near-perfect match for Sollecito's foot but could not have been attributed to Guede or Knox.

The evidence becomes even clearer when the metrics are put into tabular form:

Tabular representation of footprint data by SomeAlibi of TJMK

The correlation of the bloody footprint to the right foot of Raffaele Sollecito is extremely high in twelve separate individual measurements. In addition, there is a manifest lack of correlation to the right foot of Rudy Guede. Not only are some of the individual measurements of Rudy’s imprint as much as 30% too small, but the relative proportions of length and breadth measurements are entirely wrong as well, both undershooting and overshooting by a large margin (70% to 150%).

In Judge Massei's court, Professor Vinci, Sollecito’s expert witness attempted to argue that the footprint was actually that of Guede, but this was rejected by the judges on the basis of the measurements shown above. In addition, the court discounted the idea that Guede had ever been in his bare feet that evening. The visible shoe prints clearly showed that he had walked directly from Meredith’s room, down the hallway, and out of the door.

The severity of the impact on the defense is such that there was even a distorted photoshopped version circulated by online supporters of Raffaele and Amanda until they were caught out early on in coverage. But it is hopeless, because these are objective measurements, presented in court and recorded, in detail, in the judges' report.

Crime scene picture of bathmat from the small bathroom compared with reference prints.