Episode 33: Amanda Knox’s Family Speak Out
Amanda and her younger sister visited Perugia, Italy two years ago to find somewhere for Amada to live. They soon found a cottage. Amanda Knox moved to Perugia, Italy, to study abroad in 2007. She lived with three roommates—two Italians and one British exchange student, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher. She got on well with her roommates, she and Meredith both spoke English, the other two older roommates spoke Italian. On November 2, two months after Amanda moved in, Meredith’s nearly naked and bloodied body was discovered under a bedspread in her bedroom. She’d been beaten, raped and tortured. Her throat was slashed, causing her to choke on her own blood.
The Italian police say that as they began their investigation, they noticed Amanda was behaving bizarrely. She was hugging and kissing her boyfriend of two weeks, Raffaele Sollecito, outside the bedroom where Meredith’s dead body was found and reportedly performed cartwheels and splits at the police headquarters where her boyfriend was being questioned. Over the course of the investigation, Amanda’s own recollection of the events on the night of Meredith’s murder changed. First, Amanda claimed she was at Raffaele’s house. Later, during an all-night interrogation with no attorney present, Amanda said she had a vision of being inside the house at the time of the murder. She even said she may have heard Meredith scream. She identified the killer as Patrick Lumumba, her boss at a local bar.
A few hours later, Amanda retracted those statements, saying they had been coerced- she was hit in the back of the head by one of the police officers sho said she would make her remember. Amanda said she didn’t know what to think anymore, she was confused. The, police arrested Amanda, Raffaele and Patrick. Prosecutors claimed the murder was a result of a satanic, drug-fueled sex game turned violent and then deadly. Their theory made newspaper headlines around the world. Then a video of Amanda and her boyfriend buying underwear a day after the murder was released. Overnight, Amanda Knox, the sraight-A college student from Seattle became known as “the girl with the angel face and ice-cold eyes.”
The situaton got worse for Amanda when Amanda’s boss, Patrick, turned out to have an air-tight alibi. He was released from custody, and police set their sites instead on a drifter and alleged drug dealer, Rudy Guede. Forensic tests found his DNA inside Meredith’s body and in her bedroom. While the police had their three suspects in custody, Guede was first found guilty of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Amanda’s trial lasted 15 months. The prosecutor argued that a knife found in Raffaele’s apartment had Amanda’s DNA on the handle and Meredith’s DNA on the blade. He also said that Raffaele’s DNA was found on Meredith’s bra clasp, fueling the sex game theory. In the bathroom that Amanda and Meredith shared, police found a mix of Meredith’s blood with Amanda’s DNA.
Then it was the turn of the defense. Amanda’s attorney convinced the judge to throw out her initial statements. Amanda’s mother was called as a witness. A forensic expert for the defense team testified that the knife was too large and could not have made some of the wounds on Meredith’s neck. The defense also argued that the DNA levels on the knife were too low to be accurately measured and that the crime scene had been contaminated by careless police work. Then Amanda took the stand saying in Italian that she was afraid of having the mask of an assassin forced onto her skin
After deliberating for 11 hours, 2 judges and 6 jurors found Amanda and Raffaele guilty of murder, of sexual assault, of staging a break-in and carrying a knife. Raffaele was sentenced to 25 years and Amanda was sentenced to 26 years in prison. Rudy Guede appealed the decision against him and a judge reduced his sentence to 16 years.Whether you believe Amanda is guilty or not is up to you, Amanda’s parents, Edda Mellas and Curt Knox, say that Meredith’s death was a terrible tragedy, but their daughter’s story has yet to be told.
Oprah says that as parents no one wants to believe that their daughter is capable of such a thing- Oprah wants to know why she did such odd behaviour in the days after the crime, starting with Amanda’s supposed bizarre behavior in the days following Meredith’s murder. Her mother Edda says that if you know Amanda, she’s shocked. This is not a smiling girl; referring to video of Amanda hugging her boyfriend outside the house where Meredith was murdered. They’re not making out. He’s rubbing her back and comforting her. She was just shocked. She was devastated, she had been devastated for a large amount of time.
Edda says Amanda’s behavior at police headquarters, turning cartwheels and doing splits, was another misrepresentation. She says that Amanda had been there for 54 hours over a 91 hour period, and while doing homework, she got up to stretch. She was getting cramped, and the officers came in—they were being really friendly—and they said, Oh, you seem pretty flexible, and she said ‘Yes , I was a gymnast. They asked her if she could still do any gymnastics, and Amanda said yes and went into a split. Edda says, that was it. It was lost in translation. Amanda said that there was absolutely no cartwheels ever. Curt says that the media blows things out of proportion and especially over there. In the US we are used to having two sides to every story, over there, pretty much anyone can make up anything and they’ll print it. Edda says that much has been lost in translation, including possibly the notion of cartwheels.
Oprah asks why Amanda changed her testimony, which is never a good thing. Edda said she watched an Oprah show where a man talked about changing his testimony- he confessed to killing a whole family or something he didn’t really do. Edda says that Amanda always, in all of her statements, maintained the bottom line was that she didn’t know what was true anymore, but she did know that she did not have anything to do with the murder of her friend. Oprah asks about the vision that Amanda supposedly had- Edda says that the police fed her prompts, that she was encouraged to keep talking.
Edda also says that interestingly the Italian police recorded all other conversations and phone calls before and after the interrogation, but they did not tape the overnight 14 hour interrogation itself. Oprah asks who they think killed Meredith- Curt says that the evidence sure points to Rudy Guede. His DNA is all over and on Meredith and all over the murder scene. Amanda has no fingerprints, no blood, no sweat, no hair, nothing in the room. Raffaele has nothing there other than the bra clasp, and a speck of DNA. The bra clasp was photographed on November 2nd and it was picked up 47 days later after the crime scene had been released. There had been people going back and forward so there was an extreme possibility of contamination.
Today Curt says visiting Amanda in prison is almost unbearable. Some days visits are nice and others are extremely tough. You just do the best you can. He once held Amanda for 45 minutes while she cried in his arms. Curt and Edda divorced when Amanda was only three years old but they have joined forces to help get Amanda back. Oprah can’t imagine how it must feel to visit your child in a foreign prison where she will be for 26 years. Curt says that the time she cried for 45 minutes was the worst. Oprah asks what a good day is like- she comes out bubbly, it’s different over there you get to hold her and hug her. Curt asks her what she is up to and how her schooling is going. She is still attending the University of Washington thanks to some generous professors. She is doing German and Italian studies, and she completes the assignments and Curt or Edda get them back to Washington to be graded, she is treated like any other child. Its an independent study program which gives her a light at the end of the tunnel. Then Amanda will not feel that her time there has been wasted, so she will have something when she gets out.
Oprah asks if they really believe that Amanda will get out, and if so how? Curt says she is absolutely innocent. She went through a trial by media. Inside the courtroom there is no evidence to convict her. In Italy jurors are not sequestered and the media did a character assasination in the first year and all the jurors had been exposed to that. Oprah confirms that the jurors are not questioned in any way, it’s a very different situation. Oprah says if you want to be tried, get tried in the USA. Edda says that we make mistakes too, and that their have been Oprah episodes about that. At least to begin with it’s fair, says Oprah.
Amanda’s attorney, Theodore Simon, is in the audience and says there’s no question that Amanda’s was a wrongful conviction. We are not immune to misplaced justice and wrongful convictions in the US, no one has a monopoly on justice. This is a prime example. He says that the audience just heard Curt speak about the lack of evidence in the case which is both profound and compelling, You’ve already portrayed how horrific this murder scene was and it was very tragic and terrible. But there was no hair, no fiber, no footprint, no shoe print, no hand print, no palm print, no fingerprint, no saliva, no sweat, no cells, no blood, no DNA of Amanda Knox in the room where Kercher was found or on her body. That’s virtually impossible to have occurred in this type of case. Oprah asks if Amanda’s initial accusation of an innocent man shows a lack of integrity. The lawyer says that we have to understand the circumstances here- she had been spoken to for many hours over a long period of time without a lawyer or interpreter. Her statements were thrown out by the Supreme Court of Italy finding that her rights had been violated. This was critical, her statements were not confessions.The prosecutor in this case labored under an indictment for abuse of office during the entire pendency of Amanda’s case and was ultimately convicted.
Her boss called her to say that she didn’t need to go into to work that night and she texted thanks, see you later. In the U.S., that means, ‘See you tomorrow, next week, whenever.’ They took that to mean, again, lost in translation, literally you’re meeting up with him later today in a few hours to commit this horrible crime,” Edda says. So they kept holding that message up in front of her face and yelling at her and saying: ‘We know you were meeting with him. We know he was involved.’ It was the police that prompted all of that. Oprah asks if Amanda says that she was coerced under pressure- Edda says that she was hit, called a liar, told her that she’d never see her family again. They said just give us possibilities. Edda agrees that it was a trial by media and that things were printed that were not true about the case or Amanda herself. After the arrest, a media fire erupted- Amanda was a sex crazed party girl who did drugs and murder. Edda says that Amanda admitted that she and Raffaele had smoked pot that night after watching a movie. She stayed at his house overnight.
20/20 co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas covered the case from the very beginning, She joins Oprah from the ABC studio in NY. She says that she has never worked on a story that caused such outrage. The outrage was international; the victim was British, it happened in Italy and here in the US thousands of American families send their children overseas as exchange students. This has been a nightmarish ordeal for the Knox family, regardless of what you believe about Amanda’s guilt. There was an enormous amount of early publicity early in this case which later turned out to be untrue. For example she was in this sexy underwear store buying lingerie- Vargas was in that store, it was a Target essentially and Amanda couldn’t get home to get any of her clothes, so that makes sense. That story was sold along with the idea that she and Raffaele were planning a night of hot sex. Those kinds of stories gave a negative opinion of Amanda which never changed throughout the trial. In London the tabloids at least said Amanda Knox is guilty, but of what? Oprah says that the decision was unanimous. Elizabeth says that some jurors expressed sympathy for Amanda, for some reason, many Italians believe that she did something wrong, but they don’t know what- the fact that she said something in the interrogation then retracted it struck them as untrue. Elizabeth was struck by the early judgements on Amanda’s character that were not changed desppite a rigorous defence. During the prosecution it was like one side was saying the sky is blue while the other said that the sky is green, that’s how opposing the arguments were. An impartial expert was requested to reconcile the differences,and that request was denied. Italy gets jumpy when questions about sequestering, or the prosecutor etc arise. There was much resistance into looking at what might not have been a fair process.
Amanda has three younger sisters, Deanna, Ashley and Delaney. Deanna (21), the second-oldest, says her life has been put on hold since Amanda’s arrest. She wants Amanda back to be the older sister, she wants to be the best but Amanda is the best at being the older sister. Delaney (11) wants everything to have not happened, they won’t be a family until Amanda comes home. Ashley (15) cries because Amanda is not there, she stays strong for Amanda because she knows that she has to. She says its even harder on other people like her Dad and Edda and Amanda, she doesn’t want to say to her mom or dad that she’s sad because it makes them sad and then they worry about her and not Amanda which is who they should be worrying about. Oprah says that this says to all of us that a tragedy in the family focuses on one person but everyone is equally impacted. Deanna says that her life is on hold, on pause. They’re all just in a waiting period, waiting for Amanda to come home. Deanna stopped going to college, she works full-time. She visits Ashley and Delaney and takes care of her parents as much as possible. She has to go on- the worst thing is when Amanda cries that her whole family’s eyes fill with tears, she doesn’t want them to cry for her. Deanna says she has be strong and keep her feelings inside for the sake of her family. Curt says that because he spends so much time in Italy, he isn’t always aware of what the other girls are going through. He knows Deanna has done a fantastic job keeping them up, and hopefully this will all be done soon and Amanda’ll get to come home and they’ll get to carry on with their lives. As the mom, Edda says that you want to take care of them, but they all worry about us. They’re all putting on brave faces for each other.
Every Friday night, Amandas friends sleep over at her house so they are all together for the Saturday morning call. Her family and friends gather at Edda’s house to be there for the call. The ten minutes goes by really quick. Deanna sleeps in Amanda’s bed every night after the call.The phone rings and the cameras are turned off. Edda says Amanda sounded okay, she was upbeat. They go around the table and speak, it’s great to hear her voice. Saying goodbye is really hard, you want to talk forever. They asked to turn off the cameras because the footage would result in their calls being taken away from them. It is bittersweet to hear her, Amanda said tell Oprah hi, I love her. Edda’s eyes fill with tears, Oprah holds her hand. Amanda said ’See if you can thank all the people that have written me or donated money to the defense fund or whatever,’ because she can’t. She doesn’t have enough time to write everybody back and she’s getting hundreds of letters from people, and she wanted to find a way to thank them. Oprah asks if Amanda is putting on a good face for them- Curt says yes, its nice to hear her voice. She’d always ask how they were doing , even when she was in the courtroom. Curt’s eyes well up. Oprah asks about the 45 minutes when Amanda cried in Curts arms, Curt takes a few breaths and says trying to explain to your daughter why she is a position when she’s completely innocent… Edda says that you have to try to explain that Amanda is in the middle of this massive mistake that has to be fixed. They both say their hardest moments are trying to explain to Amanda why she is in this position.
Oprah wants to talk about MySpace pages- foxy knoxy was a name given to Amanda as a soccer-playing 8 year old – she put it up there for a joke, no one in her adult life called her that. The media took elements of her MySpacee page out of context to make her into someone that she was not. Oprah asks if they ever had a shadow of a doubt that Amanda could be guilty? Never. Did they ask her point blank? Edda says that she was the first to see Amanda after the arrest and she was confused. Once Amanda told her what had hapened, it was clarified- it was a mistake that had to be cleared up. Amanda has always maintained point blank that she had nothing to do with this, that Meredith was her friend, they were great friends.
Oprah asks if they have spoken to the family of Meredith Kercher. Curt says that during interviews, they’ve tried to express their condolences and the sorrow for the loss of their daughter. The Kercher’s have experienced the worst phone call a parent could ever have. They still have a chance with Amanda. The Kercher’s don’t with their daughter, and until they know that Amanda had nothing to do with it, Curt doesn’t know how he would feel as a parent receiving that type of call. Edda says that lawyers say that now is not the time.
Amanda’s parents are now looking to the future and trying to plan how they will free their daughter. They are hoping that a document from the jury on why they found her guilty will help their cause. Curt says ”We’re waiting for this motivation document, from there, that will allow us to draft the appeal and approach how we’re going to go about it.” The lawyer says that this case makes no legal or common sense. He likes to believe that it shouldn’t matter where the prosecution takes place, there is simply insufficient evidence. If you believe the theory that in 3 weeks Amanda went to Italy and turned into satanic ritualistic murderer, if you can get past that you’ll realise there is no forensic evidence that Amanda had anything to do with the murder. This has been a horrible experience for the family.
On the day that Amanda Knox was sentenced, Meredith Kercher’s brother, Lyle, made this statement: “Ultimately, we are pleased with the decision, pleased that we’ve got a decision, but it’s not a time for celebration. At the end of the day,its not a moment of triumph, at the end of the day we’re all gathered here because our sister was brutally murdered and taken away from us.”
Oprah says thank you all for being here.We’re all mindful that at the heart of the story is the tragic and senseless death of Meredith Kercher; we’d also like to wish her family much peace. Another reason to stop talking in your hands free cell phone in your car- 600,000 traffic accidents happen a year as a result of talking on the phone according to a Harvard study. Go online and take the no phone zone pledge. Bye everybody and thanks to Delaney and Ashley for taking part in the show.
WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:
In Italy jurors are not sequestered
Oprah says if you want to be tried, get tried in the USA.
The prosecutor in this case labored under an indictment for abuse of office during the entire pendency of Amanda’s case and was ultimately convicted.
There was no hair, no fiber, no footprint, no shoe print, no hand print, no palm print, no fingerprint, no saliva, no sweat, no cells, no blood, no DNA of Amanda Knox in the room where Meredith Kercher was found or on her body.
A tragedy in the family focuses on one person but everyone is equally impacted.
A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:
In the US we are used to having two sides to every story, over there, pretty much anyone can make up anything and they’ll print it in the papers.