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Amanda Knox: Meredith Kercher Forgotten And Foxy Knoxy Drives The Media Wild

by | 25th, November 2010

AMANDA Knox is back in the news. She’s in a Perugia court to appeal her 2009 conviction for the sexual assault and murder of British student Meredith Kercher. The victim’s body was found on November 2, 2007 in her bedroom at a residence place she shared with Amanda Knox in Perugia. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison. She has always maintained her innocence. And she is an American. And that makes it a big deal.

The papers round-up:

That Was Then

Also on trial is Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian who was Knox’s boyfriend at the time of the murder and has been convicted of the same charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In the first trial, Knox mostly appeared confident and collected. She would nod and smile to the court upon entering the room and talk to her lawyers during breaks. On a Valentine’s Day hearing, she sported a bright T-shirt with “All You Need Is Love” scrawled in large pink letters. Now, her lawyers describe her as worn out. Business Week

The Media Trial

After more than three years in prison, Knox, 23, looked wan and tense as guards ushered her in. Her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 26, was impassive, staring directly at the cameras as he was led into the room.

“We have to get used to the idea that this is going to be a media trial,” Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann told the jury of five women and one man. Star Tribune

Kerching!

In the past year, half a dozen books in English have been published on the case (as well as several in Italian), and two films — one for television — are in production. NYTimes

And The Book

There have also been a handful of books written in Italian, the most recent by an Italian MP who visited Knox in jail on several occasions. In “Take Me With You: Talks with Amanda Knox in Prison”, Rocco Girlanda, 44, wrote that Knox’s face was “beautiful like a porcelain doll” and that he pictured her in his dreams.

Tasteful stuff.

The Case

Yet there is no forensic evidence directly linking Knox to the crime scene. Traces of Sollecito’s DNA was found on Kercher’s bra clip. But it was not found by police until long after the killing, and the defence claims it was contaminated.

A pre-appeal submission accuses the trial judges of “serious non-compliance and misapplication of assessment criteria” when dealing with the scientific evidence. The defence will argue, for example, that a knife from Sollecito’s kitchen, which the prosecution identified as the murder weapon, is too long to have produced the wounds from which Kercher died. – Guardian

A Three-Pronged Defence

Knox’s legal team have to prove her innonce.

So Amanda Knox’s defence team have devised a three-pronged strategy to win her freedom.

First, the forensic evidence: the knife will be a key focus for Knox’s defence team. The prosecution say it has traces of her DNA on it. The defence say the sample was too small to be reliable and so should be rejected.
Secondly, the alibi evidence will be restated: the defence will again argue the couple were at Sollecito’s flat, not at Meredith Kercher’s house when the Leeds University student died.

And lastly the defence will want to emphasise the intense media coverage of the original trial, which they say damaged Amanda Knox’s chances of a fair hearing. BBC

The Happy Tourist

Why did Knox and Sollecito behave so oddly after the murder?
They kissed and cuddled outside the house on the day that Miss Kercher’s body was found and Knox later did cartwheels in a police station. The behaviour struck many people as odd and insensitive. Telegraph

The Prints

Why did investigators find only one of Knox’s fingerprints in the house and none of her DNA in the room in which Miss Kercher was murdered?

It was either a spectacularly incompetent crime scene search or, as the prosecution claimed, Knox and Sollecito scrubbed the cottage from top to bottom in the hours after the murder. Even then, forensic experts told the court that it would be extremely hard for two people to erase all their fingerprints, particularly in the case of Knox, who had lived there for two months.

A Day In The Life

Former prisoners Florisbela Inocencio de Jesus tells us:

“When Amanda arrived she wouldn’t talk to anyone. But something changed. She became integrated, chatting and laughing, and she got her job. Amanda is responsible for purchases – food, deodorant, perfume, you name it, she can get it.” – Sun

Dream Time

Before the hearing, Knox told Italian MP Rocco Girlanda, that jail had “broken my dreams” but she was hopeful of freedom. – Express

None of That Italian Muck

Amanda Knox’s friends and family are roasting an 18-pound turkey to celebrate Thanksgiving dinner in Italy this week with the Seattle student whose murder conviction appeals trial began Wednesday.

Her stepfather, Chris Mellas plans to use his own traditional recipe to cook the turkey himself — stuffing it with fresh sage and a perforated orange, to retain moisture during oven roasting. Knox’s Thanskgiving dinner will also include asparagus and mashed potatoes with gravy, as well as the company of two close friends visiting Perugia from Seattle. Seattle Pi

Pregnant Pause

But the vagaries of the Italian legal system were also apparent when it emerged that the appeal would proceed at a snail’s pace – once a week on Saturdays – to accommodate Sollecito’s lawyer, the MP Giulia Bongiorno, who is several months pregnant. The initial hearing lasted only 20 minutes because Ms Bongiorno had other commitments. Independent

Police Never Truly Retire

Retired forensics engineer Ron Hendry recently joined the cause. Hendry told KING 5 that he feels so strongly about Knox’s innocence, he flew to Seattle from Texas, where he lives, to explain his analysis of the case in an interview. Hendry said he was able to obtain actual photos of the murder scene at the cottage in Perugia, Italy and all of the evidence points to a lone killer.

Who is the lone killer, then? Knox?

Hendry believes Guede was burglarizing the cottage and was surprised and angered by Kercher’s presence.

No, it’s the black guy from Africa, Rudy Guede acting alone. NWCN

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Image 1 of 50

Amanda Knox, right, listens to her lawyer Maria Del Grosso, at the Perugia court, Italy, Saturday, May 21, 2011. A tearful Amanda Knox said Saturday that being in prison is "very frustrating and mentally exhausting" as the American student convicted of murdering her roommate insisted she is innocent and does not want to spend the rest of her life behind bars. Knox was emotional as she briefly addressed the appeals court in Perugia at the end of the session, her voice breaking at times and her eyes tearing up. She was convicted in 2009 of sexually assaulting and murdering Meredith Kercher of Britain, and sentenced to 26 years in prison. (AP Photo/Stefano Medici)



Posted: 25th, November 2010 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink