Body of Lies: the Amanda Knox Saga
The story of Meredith’s murder made international headlines and attracted tremendous media attention. To this day, it still remains a mystery as to what reallly occured that night. The main accused; Amanda Knox and her her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito are now free.
“Hello someone entered the house and broke the window. They messed everything up and there’s a locked door”
On the morning of November 2nd 2007, Raffaele Sollecito made a phone call to the police. His girlfriend, Amanda Knox- a 20 years old American student- discovered the corpse of her roommate Meredith Kercher, in their apartment in the university town of Perugia. Amanda was enrolled at the University for foreigners for a three-months course whereas Meredith was an Erasmus student; she was enrolled in the exchange programme at the University of Perugia.
When first being interviewed by the police, Amanda admitted that she was on the crime scene with the murderer. Yet, she retracted herself the day after and declared that her confession was bogus and false. Instead, she accused Patrick Lemumba- the owner of the pub she working at- of the murder. However, he was rapidly disculpated as there were sereval witnesses affirmating that he had been working at the bar all night. Patrick Lamumba declared she had accused him only “because he was black”.
In 2008 and only a few months later, a drug dealer named Rudy Guede was found guilty of raping and killing Meredith, he had a separate trial. The DNA and prints of Rudy Guede were found all over Meredith’s body and on the crime scene. The case took a bigger extent when Rudy Guede insisted that Amanda and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were with him the night of the murder. According to him, they performed an orgy that took a wrong turn. His cooperation with the police and this particular declaration allowed him to have his sentence reduced to 16 years of imprisonment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQFNbu4BMWI
In 2009, the Italian Court condemned Amanda to 26 years of imprisonment, or ten more years than Rudy Guede. The so-called irrefutable proof during her trial was a kitchen knife belonging to Raffaele Sollecito. Forensic investigation showed that the weapon had traces of Amanda’s and Raffaele’s DNA. However, it was argued that the tests hadn’t been correctly conducted. Therefore, the charges were dropped.
In 2011, their sentence was cancelled and Amanda was acquitted. It was after four years spent in an Italian prison that Amanda finally returned to Seattle only to learn that the opposition appealed against her acquittal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wytDebZBdE
Eventually, Amanda and Raffaele were both acquitted last March. The court of cassation declared the investigation had been misconducted and the charges lacked of evidence:
“The international spotlight on the case in fact resulted in the investigation undergoing a sudden acceleration, that, in the frantic search for one or more guilty parties to consign to international public opinion, certainly didn’t help the search for substantial truth,” the judges wrote.
Meredith Kercher
Who Killed Meredith Kercher?
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