This morning, an Italian court convicted Amanda Knox for the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher.
Knox was not present in Florence but learned of the verdict from her home in Seattle, USA. Her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, has also been convicted for a second time.
The judge handed down a sentence of 28.5 years for Knox, 25 years for Sollecito.
The courts have branded Amanda Knox a murderer. For Meredith’s family, this is long-awaited justice. And to millions of news-watchers, this young woman is the very personification of evil.
But I think Amanda Knox is innocent.
Yes, I’m a jury of one. Currently 16 317 kilometres away from where the crime took place. And I am aware that I am basing my personal verdict not on forensic evidence heard in a courtroom but on feverishly watching the story unfold over seven years on international television.
But I am not alone in this.
There are thousands of people – Knox’s friends and family obviously included – who maintain that Knox is innocent. Now she’s been convicted once again, it’s that much harder to keep arguing for her innocence. The word GUILTY will appear next to Amanda’s face in the media a million times today alone.
That doesn’t make it true.
Let me refresh your memory about what’s happened so far:
In November 2007, the body of 21-year-old English student Meredith Kercher was found on the floor of her apartment in Perugia, Italy – a place she shared with Amanda Knox and two local girls.
Knox and Raffael Sollecito (the Italian boy she’d been dating for less than a fortnight) were arrested by police. Newspapers around the world speculated that Meredith was killed in a sex game gone horribly wrong. Knox, who never cried publicly and was seen kissing her co-accused outside the crime scene, was crucified in the media. She was called “Foxy Knoxy”.
In December 2009, Knox and Sollecito were convicted of Kercher’s murder and sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison respectively. They both successfully appealed their verdicts in 2011, when an Italian court ruled that the prosecution had mishandled vital DNA evidence. That October, Knox was released from jail, where she’d already spent four years behind bars. She returned to Seattle.
A man from the Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede was then arrested in connection with the same murder. After his DNA was found at the crime scene, the Italian courts sentenced him to 30 years in prison (the sentence was reduced to 16 years following an appeal).
Then in March last year, the Supreme Court of Italy decided that Knox and Sollecito would be retried for the murder. Double jeopardy – the law that means you cannot be tried for the same crime twice – does not exist in the Italian legal system. Knox decided not to return to Italy for the case.
Which brings us back to this morning, when both Knox and Sollecito were slapped with a murder verdict for the second time.
And I’m left reeling.
Knox says she’s “frightened” and “has her heart in her throat”. Reflecting on the case, that’s how I feel too. You see, I have accidentally over-identified with Knox. She is my age. She’s got blue eyes and dark blonde hair.
That’s where our similarities end but somehow, it’s enough. There is something that keeps me coming back for more information on Knox’s convictions: It’s exasperation. It’s exasperation coupled with a profound resentment and disappointment in the way Knox has been vilified by news outlets. Her noxious nickname “Foxy Knoxy” and the way people became fixated on her good looks and sexuality really irk me and make me question how she’s been treated.
Knox was damned as much for being sexually promiscuous as she was for the crime itself. Her behaviour was also deemed inappropriate: she was seen kissing Sollecito outside the crime scene, she wore a casual t-shirt and smiled in court, she was never seen crying until she was sentenced, and in every public appearance she was stoic, unmoved. And then there was the cartwheel incident – when Italian police officers allegedly saw her do a cartwheel in between interrogations right after Meredith Kercher was found dead.
With all that public vilification, it doesn’t seem to matter that there was insufficient evidence to convict Knox and Sollecito.
It doesn’t matter that the minuscule traces of DNA the prosecution based their entire case on were legally too small to count, or that the clasp from Meredith’s bra (the piece of fabric with a virtually undetectable trace of Sollecito’s DNA) lay on the floor of the crime scene for days before it was picked up and then not bagged properly, or that officers on the scene didn’t adhere to international protocols on evidence collection.
Forensic experts have condemned the Italian police force for contaminating the crime scene. The “murder weapon” doesn’t match Meredith’s wounds, and it hasn’t been conclusively linked to either Knox or Sollecito.
Then there’s the evidence that should be there, but isn’t: Like, for instance, any trace whatsoever of Knox being in the bedroom where Meredith died. Whereas, Rudy Guede’s DNA was found on Meredith’s body and in the room, which is why he’s serving time for her murder. He is guilty. But that gets in the way of a more salacious narrative: that “Foxy Knoxy” forced her housemate into a fatal sex game.
The lasting fascination with Knox and the case is all about hanging onto what shocks us most. She doesn’t look like a killer, and I’ve always detected a note of sick delight in the way people declare she’s guilty. Because she’s good looking, because she was exploring her sexuality and because she didn’t sob in the court room or react in the ways we think we would.
Picture her now, at home with her family, waiting to hear whether she’ll be extradited to Italy to serve that sentence. It’s up to the USA now, to protect her and keep her in America, or to abide by the extradition agreement they have with Italy and send her back to Florence for 28.5 years.
In her quietest moments alone, Amanda Knox knows in her heart whether she’s guilty or innocent. But to most of the world, she’s a depraved murderer too cowardly to return to the country where she committed her crime.
The very strong case for her innocence will haunt me forever.
Have you followed the Amanda Knox case? Have you felt uncomfortable about the sexualised way the media has portrayed her? Do you believe justice has been done?
UPDATE: Amanda Knox responds to verdict
Amanda Knox sat down with Good Morning America reporter Robin Roberts to talk about her conviction, the Kercher family, and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
In the interview, she reveals that she’s written a letter of support to Meredith Kercher’s family. “It’s in the mail,” she says.
She also responds to news that her co-accused, ex-boyrfiend Raffaele Sollecito, was stopped on the Italian border and advised not to leave the country. “My first thought was, oh my god, Raffaele,” she begins.
Amanda’s voice is unsteady, like she’s moments away from crying.
See it all here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4hafGvxj9o
Top Comments
The evidence against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito is overwhelming. They gave completely different accounts of where they were, who they were with and what they were doing on the night of the murder. Neither Knox nor Sollecito have credible alibis despite three attempts each. All the other people who were questioned had one credible alibi that could be verified. Innocent people don't give multiple conflicting alibis and lie repeatedly to the police.
The DNA didn't miraculously deposit itself in the most incriminating of places.
An abundant amount of Raffaele Sollecito's DNA was found on Meredith's bra clasp. His DNA was identified by two separate DNA tests. Of the 17 loci tested in the sample, Sollecito’s profile matched 17 out of 17. Professor Novelli pointed out there's more likelihood of meteorite striking the courtroom in Perguia than there is of the bra clasp being contaminated by dust.
According to Sollecito's forensic expert, Professor Vinci and Luciano Garofano, Knox's DNA was also on Meredith's bra.
Amanda Knox's DNA was found on the handle of the double DNA knife and a number of independent forensic experts - Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni, Dr. Renato Biondo, Professor Giuesppe Novelli, Professor Francesca Torricelli, Luciano Garofano, Elizabeth Johnson and Greg Hampikian - have all confirmed that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade. Sollecito knew that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade which is why he lied about accidentally pricking her hand whilst cooking.
According to the prosecution's experts, there were five instances of Knox's DNA or blood mixed with Meredith's blood in three different locations in the cottage. Even Amanda Knox's lawyers conceded that her blood had mingled with Meredith's blood. In other words, Meredith and Amanda Knox were both bleeding at the same time.
Knox tracked Meredith's blood into the bathroom, the hallway, her room and Filomena's room, where the break-in was staged. Knox's DNA and Meredith's blood was found mixed together in Filomena's room, in a bare bloody footprint in the hallway and in three places in the bathroom.
Rudy Guede's bloody footprints led straight out of Meredith's room and out of the house. This means that he didn't stage the break-in in Filomena's room or go into the blood-spattered bathroom after Meredith had been stabbed.
The bloody footprint on the blue bathmat in the bathroom matched the precise characteristics of Sollecito’s foot, but couldn’t possibly belong to Guede. Knox's and Sollecito's bare bloody footprints were revealed by Luminol in the hallway.
It's not a coincidence that the three people - Knox, Sollecito and Guede - who kept telling the police a pack of lies are all implicated by the DNA and forensic evidence.
Amanda Knox voluntarily admitted that she was involved in Meredith's murder in her handwritten note to the police on 6 November 2007. After she was informed that Sollecito was no longer providing her with an alibi, she stated on at least four separate occasions that she was at the cottage when Meredith was killed. At the trial, Sollecito refused to corroborate Knox's alibi that she was at his apartment.
Knox accused an innocent man, Diya Lumumba, of murdering Meredith despite the fact she knew he was completely innocent. She didn't recant her false and malicious allegation against Lumumba the whole time he was in prison. She acknowledged that it was her fault that Lumumba was in prison in an intercepted conversation with her mother on 10 November 2007.
Please stop copy and pasting from propaganda sites.
All the dna evidence has been conclusively disproven by independant experts, to the point these experts have condemned the italian handling of this.
There was no dna of Knox found in the room of the victim, that along speaks volumes.
The knife flat out does not match the wounds on Meredith, nor was there dna of Knox found on it.
The footprint of the shoe does indeed match a sheo Guede owned, but none for Knox.
Nothing Amanda Knox gave to the police, in terms of testimony, is admissable, she was interrogated for 49 hours STRAIGHT through the night without sleep, with cops revolving shifts, in Italian, which she could not speak, without a lawyer present.
That is tantamount to coercion and torture, you may as well waterboard someone.
"Yes, I’m a jury of one. Currently 16 317 kilometres away from where the
crime took place. And I am aware that I am basing my personal verdict
not on forensic evidence heard in a courtroom but on feverishly watching
the story unfold over seven years on international television."
To me, this is where the article should have ended. The unsaid sentence from here on was, "if only those Italian judges had taken the time to read that one Rolling Stones article, there is no way they would have found her guilty!" We have legal systems for a reason. Because whether we like it or not, humans believe what we want to believe and we seek out evidence that sings our opinions back to us. I'm not saying any legal system is perfect. But it is infinitely better than declaring a person innocent because they look a bit like us, so we project ourselves onto them and then are aghast at the idea that the imaginary personhood we have created for them could ever do any thing wrong!