1 . The Bathmat and the print, with measurement reference

2 . The bathmat print and surrounding area

3 . The bathmat print (photo from Polizia Scientifica).

4 . The bathmat print, with vertical and horizontal sizes, from Rinaldi’s report

5. The bathmat print, photo with enhanced contrast.

6 . Enhanced contrast helps to spot some features, especially some parts of the print outline. For example, the left outline of the ‘big toe’, which includes the area indicated in this picture (here in the original colours):

7. The bathmat, with enhanced contrast, showing the presence of other stains, and of a second diluted footprint (apparently of smaller size).

8. The selection of a set of red colour shades, outlined by and automatic outline generator, shows the shape and the possible ‘outline’ of the stain. Reference measurements indicate the width of the ‘big toe’ in millimetres.

9 . A hand drawing of the outline (detail). The photography was modified with: +28% contrast, -8% luminosity, + 20% colour saturation, from the original. An outline has been drawn manually on the photoshop image, trying to be as faithful as possible to the actual stain. You can notice that, apart from some minor ‘disputable’ very faint areas (such as the area between the toe and the metatarsus) there are only minimal differences between an automatically generated outline and a manually drawn one. The shapes of the ‘big toe’ are extremely similar in both contours (images 8 and 9), in fact all meaningful features are basically identical. We consider this manually drawn outline as good for comparison.

10 . The complete hand-drawn outline

11 . Minor detail: small dots separated from the main stain. Although we can’t draw any conclusion about their possibly significance, we note the existence of these very small ‘spots’ of a faint red colour shade, separated from the big stain, which are detected by the computer generated outline above, and that we also see as distinguishable with the naked eye thus we considered them in drawing manually the outline. Because of their sensitive position (they may suggest a ‘small toe’ mark) we take note of them. This pictures points out their position (green).

12 . As a part of the preliminary study of the stain, we also obtained an image in electronically modified colours, for further assessments about its shape. This shows the distribution and intensity of the colouration.

13 . The bathmat has a spiral-shaped relief decoration. The footprint’s toe was obviously balancing on top of the relief decoration. We think the outline of the ‘toe’ mark of the bloody footprint is affected by the shape of the decoration, in particular the missing part of the toe on the right side, which is remarkably coincident with the margin of the decoration. So that on that side there is a striking correspondence between the outline of the ‘negative area’ – the fabric surface around the spiral, which is lower – and the big toe’s outline, indicating that the outline of that mark on that side was affected by the decoration margin, thus the print there has a ‘missing part’. So the ‘crooked’ bloody area in fact follows the margin of a larger toe. Because of such coincidence, we can logically assume that the actual shape of the big toe mark appears to be part of a big toe, with larger surface which left its print only partly because part of its surface did not have contact with the fabric, in correspondence of the ‘negative area’.

14. The “negative area”

15. The remarkable coincidence between the outlines of the decoration in relief and of the toe mark is shown in the picture below.

The rough contour of the print obtained through a smooth curve highlights the shape of the big toe. Part of the relief decoration outline coincides with the toe mark outline, which shows, highlights and explains how all parts of the red toe mark, that you can see left of the relief decoration, they all belong to one single, unitary stain. Thus we can deduce that the “missing” area on the right of the toe is determined by the decoration, and coincides with the negative area.

16. The picture below (by Kermit) shows a rough shape of the stain, showing the actual shape and size of and the of the big toe.

17. Rudy Guede’s sample print. A copy of this picture together with one of Sollecito’s print at the same scale will be used for comparisons.

18 . Raffaele Sollecito’s sample print. Pictures 17. And 18. Here are not shown at the same scele, while same scale copines be used for comparison.

19. Pert Rudy Guede’s sample print with Rinaldi’s reference measurements

20. part of Sollecito’s sample print, with Rinaldi’s reference measurements:

21. The process of bringing all photographs down at the same scale was done based on Rinaldi’s referenced pictures. Each one of the Rinaldi’s sample pictures has multiple measurements on several points of reference which allow a high precision determination of their scale and sizes, and thus comparison at the same scale. In order to further increase scaling precision, the scale was calculated previously and separately for each comparative measurement in the three photos; this was done multiple times for each measurement and the average was picked in order to reduce error as for statistical measurement method. The resulting final error in the scale is extremely small, far below a threshold of significance that could affect comparison (which was set arbitrarily at 1%, but it’s probably significantly higher). In other words, the scale error that may affect your screen pictures will be definitely smaller than any possible perceivable (either significant or tolerated) difference that would be noticed or that may affect the attribution of the stain, when this is compared to the sample.

22. The hand drawn outline is shown again here.

23 . The same outline, brought down at the same scale of the sample, overlapped to Guede’s footprint.

23 . The outline (at the same scale) overlapped to Sollecito’s cample footprint.

The overlapping of the stain outline with Guede’s print (22.) shows 7 major differences, indicated in the picture; the numbers (1-7) in pic 22. indicate areas of major differences between the outlines of the bathmat stain and Guede’s print. These are:

1) toe mark of stain is significantly shorter than the big toe in Guede’s sample print (a difference of about 7 millimetres)

2) toe mark of stain is much wider (30 mm) than Guede’s; the protruding mark at the upper right, which Giulia Bongiorno insists calling “second toe” mark, in fact is not a “mark” itself but actually just part of the same area which is entirely continuous with the rest of the toe mark, its right outline is determined by the outline of the spiral relief decoration and the area of big toe missing from the lower right is only due to the existence of the “negative area” . The wider mark, however one likes to call it (“big toe”, or “big toe + second toe”) fails to match any part of Guede’s print, it is clearly different and incompatible with Guede’s print, it can’t be overlapped to any part of Guede’s sample print. This area is a very significant difference pointing to incompatibility between the stain and Guede’s print.

3) The toe mark is larger even in the lower portion. The toe of the bathmat print has a right margin which actually has some small marks, like droplets maybe produced by the cotton fibres of the part in relief, which protrude towards the right and tend to suggest the toe area of the stain may be in fact considered wider also in this areas. So it is wider than 22-23 mm, more towards 30 mm, not just measured by the upper corner but even at its “lower” parts; here, the small marks caused by the liquid suggest that a larger surface has squeezed liquid from some fabric threads leaving some trace also on the lower area.

4) Bigger incompatibility of Guede on the metatarsus front outline. This area is the front outline of metatarsus: the stain is almost 1cm shorter than Guede’s metatarsus, when you make the left outline of metatarsus coincide, as in the picture. Sollecito’s sample print also shows a difference from the stain in this area (pic. 23.) the difference between the stain and Sollecito’s print is significantly smaller than with Guede’s print.

5) Absence of small toes in the bathmat stain. Small toes are completely absent from the bathmat stain (while the tiny blood marks around the stain don’t coincide with their expected position if it was Guede’s print), which is a remarkable difference from Guede’s print and a considerable analogy with Sollecito’s print. In fact one outstanding feature of Guede’s print is evidence that Guede places a big load of weight on his small toes while Sollecito does not. Thus Guede’s small toes are all very well pressed on the ground and thus they are somehow naturally likely to get wet if he steps on any wet surface, and anyway they should get wet for sure when the foot is immersed in water or washed; the murderer supposedly washed his foot then stepped on the bathmat, in order to attribute the print to Guede we should assume that Guede “forgot” to touch the carpet with his small toes (while instead he puts a lot of weight on them) or that he managed to not rinse them.

6) The outline of the stain has a plantar arch which coincides, by curvature an angle, with the plantar arch in Sollecito’s print, and it is very different from the plantar arch of Guede’s print.

7) The stain is larger than Guede’s print metatarsus. The difference is significant, almost half a centimetre, bigger than the difference with Sollecito’s print which coincides for a trait. This difference cannot be “solved” in any way since, even if one wanted to claim that the scale is wrong and that the stain should be seized down, this would make the toe, already too short (as in 1.) become even shorter. If instead the toe length is adjusted the metatarsus becomes even less compatible with Guede. We recall that Massei found that Guede’s feet had a print overall more slender than Sollecito’s.

24 . Other features: the plantar arch curvature, highlighted in two different drawings (the second highlights also the upper outline “hunches”); the plantar arches in the two sample prints of Sollecito and Guede are shown below. The curvatures of plantar arch are very different.

25. The outline curvature generates different angles. Sollecit o and Guede’s plantar arch curvatures have very different angles. Sollecito’s outline has an angle (see outline tangent) intersecting the toe; in Guede’s print there is basically no intersection, the outline and the toe form almost a straight line.

26 . The plantar arch curvature angle is different between Sollecito and Guede

27 . The “cleft” on the left side of the stain has a correspondence with one sample print, not so with the other.

28 . Table of metric comparison (by SomeAlibi): comparison of measurements and analysis of correspondence degree of bathmat print, with both Guede’s and Sollecito’s sample prints.