Sometime during the evening of November 1, 2007, Meredith Kercher, a bubbly twenty-one-year exchange student from Surrey, England was brutally raped and murdered in her home away from in Perugia, Italy. Kercher shared the home with another exchange student, 20-year-old Seattle, Washington native, Amanda Knox, along with two other roomies.
In what should have been coverage of the investigation into the murder of a young woman in a foreign country, the news media changed the narrative to highlight the sexual escapades of Knox (Foxy Knoxy) and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, the son of a prominent Italian physician.
The intense media coverage gained added momentum when Italian prosecutor, Giulano Mignini, himself convicted of abusing his office, stoked the image of the promiscuous American, perhaps fueled in part by the odd behavior of Knox and Sollecito during the initial stages of the investigation.
Knox’s accounting of where she was, and what she was doing the night Kercher was killed changed as many times as a mother changes the diaper of a colicky toddler, along with added salacious details kept the case in headlines around the world.
On the night of the Kercher murder and sexual assault, Knox said she spent the night with Sollecito at his apartment, where they had dinner together, smoked pot, and had sex. However, Sollecito’s recollections of November 1 did not back up Knox’s story.
Sollecito told police he spent the evening at his place downloading movies to his laptop, smoking pot, and could not remember if Knox was present or not. However, after Sollecito’s laptop was checked there was no activity evidence to back up his claim.
Friday morning, November 2, Knox said she went back to the home she shared with roommates, where she found one of the roommate’s rooms in disarray, blood on the bathroom mat, and Kercher’s bedroom door locked from the inside.
Inexplicably, after surveying the chaotic conditions in the house, Knox said she took a shower, dressed, and went back to Sollecito’s home, and later the couple returned to her home in Perugia. The police were then called, and the door to Kercher’s room was forced open to find her lifeless, partially clad body beneath a duvet. Kercher’s throat had been cut, and she had been raped. Sollecito and Knox were photographed outside the house of the murder scene cuddling and kissing, seemingly oblivious the crime scene investigation going on inside.
Saturday, November 3, Knox and Sollecito are photographed shopping for lingerie, and behaving like they were on a lover’s holiday.
Monday, November 5, Knox is brought in to be interrogated by Italian police. After police question Knox about a text message she received from her employer, Patrick Lumumba, Knox names him as the person who killed Kercher.
Lumumba owned the bar, Le Chic, where Knox worked as a part time waitress. Knox told police Lumumba had a romantic interest in Kercher, and that she agreed to meet him at a basketball court near her home. Knox said she and Lumumba walked together to the house she shared with Kercher, and when they arrived Lumumba walked into Kercher’s bedroom, shutting the door behind him.
Standing outside Kercher’s bedroom door, Knox said she put her fingers into her ears to shut out the sounds of assault coming from inside Kercher’s bedroom.
Lumumba is then arrested for the murder and sexual assault of Meredith Kercher, and remained in jail until two things happened.
One, a Swiss businessman came forward after reading about the case, to say he had been in Le Chic Thursday night, November 1, and that he could confirm that Lumumba had also been present at the bar.
And two, DNA evidence found on Kercher’s body, and throughout the house cleared Lumumba, but proved to be a positive match for Rudy Guede.
Guede, a known drug dealer and small time thief to Italian law enforcement, had recently been arrested in Milan for allegedly breaking into a school. When police apprehended Guede for the break in, reportedly he had a knife in his hand.
When police confronted Knox with evidence that cleared Lumumba of any involvement in Kercher’s death, her recollection of events changed as she cited long hours of police questioning for her confusion.
On Tuesday, November 6, 2009 the young American, who Italian police say interspersed somesaults between interrogations, was arrested along with her boyfriend for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Prosecutor Mignini theorized that Kercher was killed when she refused to participate in wild sex games involving Knox, Sollecito and Guede.
All three were found guilty by an Italian jury, with Knox receiving 26 years, Sollecito 25, and Guede 16. Guede was originally sentenced to 30 years in prison, but an appeals trial reduced his term to 16 years after he implicated Knox and Sollecito in Kercher’s death.
On November 24, 2010, the appeals trial begins for Knox and Sollecito. On June 29, 2011 the case for the prosecution takes a serious hit when most of the DNA evidence against the accused pair is basically declared useless.
Then on Monday, October 3, 2011, Knox testifies at her appeals trial saying “I did not kill. I did not rape, I was not there.” The jury believes Knox, and she is acquitted of the murder, and sexual assault of Kercher.
However, Knox was ordered to pay Patrick Lumumba £22,000 in compensation for falsely accusing him for the sexual assault and murder of Meredith Kercher. Knox was also found guilty of slandering Italian law enforcement, and sentenced to time already served.
In the end, the lies told by Knox, Sollecito, Guede, the sloppy forensics work by Italian law enforcement, and a rogue prosecutor; all converged together to form the perfect storm, leaving behind two victims; Meredith Kercher and the truth.
Sources
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2041890/Amanda-Knox-murder-appeal-Lawyers-tirade-killer-Meredith-Kercher.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2044585/Amanda-Knox-verdict-Freed-appeal-court-overturns-murder-conviction.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44752948/ns/world_news-europe/?GT1=43001
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8803231/Amanda-Knox-chronology-timeline-of-a-murder-case.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/6732245/Amanda-Knox-trial-Rudy-Guede-profile.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8804928/Amanda-Knox-cleared-of-the-murder-of-Meredith-Kercher.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22332240/ns/dateline_nbc-crime_reports/t/deadly-exchange/
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1105/08/cp.01.html