Her new American housemate, Amanda Knox, had been expecting to work at her bar job that night. But her boss Partick Lumumba texted that it was quiet and he didn’t need her. ibid.
In the eyes of the prosecution Amanda Knox was about to lead Sollecito, her boyfriend of less than a week, and Rudy Guede, a man she hardly knew, into an explosion of sex and violence. ibid.
At some time before midnight someone sexually assaulted Meredith and put a knife in her throat. ibid.
What followed was a frenzy of police activity. ibid.
She had posted holiday pictures of herself in an Austrian Museum posing with a gun; she had held a leaving party in Seattle and was fined for playing loud music. ibid.
Sollecito ... One site pictured him dressed like a surgeon and holding a meat cleaver. An equally disturbing online image was that of Rudy Guede. Born in the Ivory Coast ... ‘I’m a Vampire. I’m Dracula. I’m going to suck your blood’. ibid.
Over several nights in the police station Knox’s behaviour began to raise questions. ibid.
Sollecito originally told the police that Knox had spent the night with him. ibid.
She told the police she had actually been present during the murder. And she named the man she worked for – the bar owner Patrick Lumumba – as the murderer. ibid.
The media went after Amanda Knox. ibid.
By the time Patrick Lumumba was released the police had fingerprint evidence – proving that a petty criminal Rudy Guede had been involved in the murder. ibid.
The prosecution said that having murdered Meredith, Knox and her boyfriend then covered up their crime. They faked a break-in, ransacking the bedroom of one of the Italian flatmates before breaking a window outside. ibid.
In jail Knox was receiving hate mail. ibid.
Knox said that she spent the whole night at her boyfriend’s flat and could not have murdered Meredith. ibid.
The other problem was the knife couldn’t have inflicted all the wounds on Meredith’s body. The Prosecution never produced a second knife. ibid.
The prosecution claimed there were five different places where Meredith’s blood or DNA or Knox were mixed. ibid.
The trial finally came to an end on December 4th 2009. ibid.
On 3rd October 2011 Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito won their appeal against their murder convictions. Both have been released from prison. ibid.
November 2007 Parugia Italy: a twenty-one-year-old British student Meredith Kercher is sexually assaulted and stabbed to death. Could Meredith’s own housemate Amanda Knox be one of those to blame for her brutal murder? Great Crimes & Trials/Killer Trials: Meredith Kercher Murder
It will take four years and three sensational trials ... Was justice done? ibid.
She had implicated an innocent man. ibid.
A British student, Meredeth Kercher, killed in Italy. Police arrest Rudy Guede, Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox with an incredible theory. The world’s press is obsessed. All three are convicted but maintain their innocence. Two years later Knox and Sollecito are sensationally freed on appeal after the forensic evidence is called into doubt. Amanda Knox: The Untold Story, Channel 5 2011
2 November 2007 Perugia Italy 12.00 p.m. ... A pillow is propped under her hips, there is bruising on her [Kercher] legs and her bra has been cut with a knife ... And in the bathroom even more blood. ibid.
Nothing in that room was missing. ibid.
Meredith’s body has more than forty injuries. ibid.
A small amount of male DNA is found inside Meredith’s body. ibid.
Detectives wonder whether killing Kercher in a drug and sex fuelled frenzy is the ultimate thrill for the hedonistic couple. ibid.
Both he and Amanda maintain they stayed at his flat all night and didn’t leave until the next morning. ibid.
Patrick Lumumba owns Le Chic, the bar where Knox works ... Witnesses swear Patrick Lumumba was working in his bar all night. ibid.
At the scene investigators find Meredith’s bra clasp with Sollecito’s DNA on it. At Sollecito’s flat they find a knife, suggesting Amanda Knox wielded the murder weapon. ibid.
Forensic results also reveal someone else was at the house that night. ibid.
Guede fled the country the day after the killing. And it was his DNA found in Meredith’s body. ibid.
In the appeal of Rudy Guede the judges determine again that Guede couldn’t have acted alone. So who really killed Meredith Kercher? ibid.
How the forensic team carried out their duties has also been criticised. ibid.
I found the [Knox’s prison] diary disquieting and worrying ... What was not present in the diary was any empathy, any sympathy, and understanding or insight about what the Kerchers might be experiencing. Professor David Wilson
These things seem unreal to me, like a dream. And I am unsure if they are real things that happened or just dreams. Amanda Knox
All I know is that I didn’t kill Meredith, and so I have nothing but lies to be afraid of. Amanda Knox
The Guardian’s repeated casting of the Meredith Kercher murder trial as a gross miscarriage of justice for Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito is disturbing. Undoubtedly, the case is complex and shrouded in ambiguity and uncertainty. However, there are at least three points which are certain.
1) During the pre-trial, trial proper, and retrial, different judges and juries have, after close and prolonged examination of all the evidence, concluded there is enough evidence against the defendants to find them guilty of the murder charge against them.
2) The appeal in which the defendants were acquitted was overturned after the Supreme Court found it to have ‘multiple shortcomings, contradictions and inconsistencies’ and that the ‘evidence against [the defendants] had been underestimated’.
3) At the same time as she was originally found guilty of murder, Amanda Knox was also found guilty of slander and subsequently sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for having accused an innocent man of the crime. Although acquitted of murder on appeal, the slander charge was upheld. At the time of the acquittal, Ms Knox had spent four years in jail, i.e. she effectively served the slander sentence while on remand. Therefore, she has not in fact served any time in prison for a crime she did not commit (although the same could not be said for Mr Sollecito if the final outcome of the legal process were to find him not guilty). Guardian online article 4th February 2014
‘Hello, someone entered the house and broke the window. They messed everything up. And there’s a locked door’: On November 2nd 2007 police in Perugia receive a phone call. There’s been a break in. When police arrive they discover a young woman has been stabbed to death. Is Amanda Knox Guilty? BBC 2014
Convicted. Jailed. Acquitted. And now found guilty once more. ibid.
‘I was imprisoned as an innocent person.’ ibid. Amanda Knox
It’s Halloween. It’s party time. ibid.
Amanda says she’s worried about her friend Meredith. Her door’s locked; she’s not answering her phone ... The battered and bloodied body of Meredith Kercher. ibid.
Meredith is partially naked ... It looks like a sexual assault. ibid.
There are 40 wounds. Too many, police believe, for one assailant. ibid.
Meredith was trained in Karate and must have encountered overwhelming force. ibid.
At 1:45 in the morning Amanda breaks down ... His [Lamumba’s] photo flashes around the world. ibid.
20-year-old Rudy Guede from the Ivory Coast is living in Perugia. Detectives find his bloody thumbprint on a pillow-case that was underneath Meredith’s dead body. Because he’s an immigrant they have his prints on file ... He is arrested in Germany. ibid.
How did Amanda Knox come to mention Lumumba’s name to police? ibid.
Three clear prints appear in the hallway. ibid.
Amanda Knox's DNA has been found mixed together with Meredith Kercher’s in five bloodstains in the flat. Plus tests show the bare footprints match the size and shape of Amanda’s and her boyfriend’s feet. ibid.
A sex game gone wrong. ibid.
Rudy Guede is found guilty of Meredith’s murder and sentenced to thirty years. ibid.