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The murder of Meredith Kercher occurred in Perugia, Italy, on 1 November 2007. The following day, police discovered the body of the 21-year-old British university exchange student in the upstairs flat that she shared with three other young women. She was found lying partially clothed under a duvet in her locked bedroom, with blood on the floor, bed and walls. Forensic pathologists concluded strangulation had been attempted, and then her neck was stabbed, causing fatal bleeding. Her body had 40 bruises and scratches, plus knife wounds on the neck and hands, and there was evidence of sexual assault. Two credit cards and 300 euros were missing, and her two mobile phones were found in gardens about 1 km away (.6 mi).

On 6 November 2007, police arrested two suspects: Amanda Knox, an American student, and Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian student who had been Knox's boyfriend for two weeks. At the time of their arrest and since, both have continuously maintained their innocence.

On 20 November 2007, based on DNA and fingerprint evidence found near the victim's body, Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivorian long-term resident of Perugia, was arrested in Germany. He was subsequently extradited to Italy. Guede elected for a fast-track trial and was convicted on 28 October 2008 of the sexual assault and murder of Kercher and sentenced to 30 years in prison. This sentence was reduced to 16 years on appeal. Guede maintains that he is innocent and, in May 2010, filed a second appeal, to the Court of Cassation.

Although Knox and Sollecito, whose trial began 16 January 2009, were initially judged guilty of murder, sexual violence and other charges (5 December 2009), their verdicts have been suspended, pending new appellate trials. Originally, Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, while Sollecito received 25 years, but those could be overturned or reduced upon appeal. Knox and Sollecito filed appeals based on validity of DNA evidence and a new witness, and their second trial will be held in the autumn of 2010.

The Murder of Meredith Kercher has received extensive media attention from all over the world, especially in Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States and the initial guilty verdict of Knox and Sollecito is disputed by various observers.

Meredith Kercher

Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, known to her friends as "Mez", was born on 28 December 1985 in Southwark, London, England, and lived in Coulsdon, South London. She had two older brothers, John and Lyle, and an older sister, Stephanie. Kercher attended the Old Palace School in Croydon and then the University of Leeds. As part of the ERASMUS student exchange programme, she went to the University of Perugia to complete her degree course in European Studies. She appeared in a music video for singer Kristian Leontiou's song "Some Say" shortly before her death. In Perugia, she moved into a flat on the upper floor of a house at Via della Pergola 7, sharing with two Italian women. Amanda Knox soon arrived when she came to study at the University for Foreigners, and they went to the university together.

Kercher's funeral service was held on 14 December 2007 at Croydon Parish Church, with more than 300 people in attendance. She has since been awarded a posthumous degree by the University of Leeds.

John Kercher, the victim's father, is a freelance journalist and her mother Arline Kercher is a housewife, born in India.

Murder and investigation

Timeline and police investigation

Kercher was murdered on the evening of 1 November 2007. The pathologists put her time of death at around 23:00.

On 1 November, Kercher had spent the early evening with some friends, watching the film The Notebook and eating a home-made pizza. Kercher left with a friend to walk home at about 20:45. The two parted company near her friend's flat at 20:55, and Kercher walked the 500 yards (460 m) towards the house alone. At 22:00, her UK mobile phone dialed her London bank without the required international prefix. The bank number was the first entry in her phone index. At 22:13, her UK phone received an incoming message, through a different mobile station shared with an adjacent neighborhood, but Meredith never answered.

An elderly neighbour heard a scream on the night of the murder, which she later said "was so chilling, I felt as if I was in a house of horrors". Soon after, she "heard running on the metal staircase and then running through the leaves going in the other direction". She concluded that these were the footsteps of "at least two people".

At 12:07 pm on 2 November, Amanda Knox called Kercher's UK phone, then called housemate Filomena R. saying the front door of the cottage had been left open and there was some blood. She also called her mother, although it was around 4 am in Seattle, as the first of 3 calls. Later, the Italian Post and Communications Police came to investigate the discovery of two mobile phones in a nearby garden, both belonging to Kercher, although the SIM card on one, which had been given to Kercher as a gift, was registered to Filomena R. They arrived at the house in Via della Pergola 7, where Kercher lived, circa 12:35. Knox and Sollecito were standing outside and told them that the premises had been burgled, that a window had been broken and that there were drops of blood in several rooms. At 12:51 and 12:54, Sollecito made 2 calls to the Carabinieri military police, reporting a possible burglary.

The police investigated the upstairs flat, which they concluded, apart from Kercher's bedroom and the nearby bathroom, had been "thoroughly cleaned with bleach" (disputed at trial: see below). There was blood in several rooms, a bloody footprint in the smaller bathroom, an unflushed toilet in the large bathroom, broken glass in the third bedroom, and blood near Kercher's locked bedroom. The lower left pane of housemate Filomena's bedroom window had been smashed, with broken glass near a large stone in a bag on the floor, and the room appeared ransacked. When Filomena returned around 1 pm, she said nothing major had been taken.

Friends of Filomena forced the door to Kercher's room open. The police found Kercher lying beneath a duvet "soaked in blood", with pools and smears of blood around the room. Others were told not to enter, as the area was secured for investigation. The Carabinieri police arrived, and the forensic lab in Rome was contacted to process the scene. Police said, at the time, that Kercher was found wearing only a cotton shirt rolled halfway up, and they concluded her throat had been slit with a shard of glass or a pen-knife. They subsequently concluded, from dried blood-spatter patterns and bra-strap marks, that she had been wearing two cotton-mesh shirts rolled up, above her bra, at the time of the murder, and that the apparent break-in at the flat had been staged.

An early police theory was that Kercher had met her killer the previous night during Halloween festivities.

Knox and Sollecito were interviewed several times by the police on the day the murder was discovered and the following two days. On 5 November 2007, Knox voluntarily accompanied Sollecito to the police station where he gave a statement, in the course of which he said that he did not know for sure that Knox was with him on the night of the murder. The police then decided to question Knox and began the interview at 23.00 that evening. Knox was interviewed twice during the night of 5–6 November, firstly by the judicial police and then, later, in the presence of a prosecutor. During these interviews, Knox made statements implicating Patrick Lumumba, the owner of a bar-restaurant named Le Chic, at which she occasionally worked. She said that she had accompanied Lumumba to Kercher's house and had been in the kitchen and heard screams while Lumumba committed the murder. The contents of these statements was widely reported in the press at the time. Knox later claimed that both statements were made under duress and that she had been coerced into implicating Lumumba: she said that she had been struck twice on the back of the head during the questioning, called a "stupid liar" and when asked did she hear screams she had replied no. This is denied by the police who have now responded with a defamation charge. The conduct of these interviews remains an area of controversy in the case, with Knox's lawyer, when summing up at the end of her trial, stating that they lasted a total of 53 hours, a stressful and frightening experience for Knox.

Knox was formally arrested later on the morning of 6 November. Some time afterwards she made a written note to the police, explaining that she was confused when she made the earlier statements, saying "I'm very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion". However, she still seemed to incriminate Lumumba, saying: "I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik , but I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me that what I said before, that I stayed at Raffaele's house." She went on to say "I see Patrik as the murderer, but the way the truth feels in my mind, there is no way for me to have known because I don't remember FOR SURE if I was at my house that night." She noted that she wrote that account, just hours later, to clarify that those supposed "mental block" memories, requested by the police, did not seem real to her.

This written note was admissible at the trial of Knox and Sollecito. However, following a ruling by the Court of Cassation, the statements made to police during the night of 5–6 November were not: one because she was being interviewed as a witness and the other because no lawyer was present. Nevertheless, the judge (at the Knox trial) ruled that both statements were admissible in Lumumba's civil case against Knox, which was being tried in the same court at the same time as the criminal trial of Knox and Sollecito.

Lumumba was arrested on 6 November 2007 as a result of Knox's statements. He was detained for two weeks until the arrest of Guede. Initially doubts about his alibi were reported in the press, but ultimately he was completely exonerated.

The upstairs flat

The house at Via della Pergola 7 was investigated, along with the residence of Sollecito and Guede's former flat. The house was on an open hillside below the city centre, near a motorway on the edge of town. Kercher shared the upstairs flat with Knox and two long-time Italian friends who rented the flat in August 2007. It was accessed via a path at the top of some steps, to a parking lot, and included a foyer, a kitchen-living room area, two shared bathrooms with sink, toilet and bidet (one had a bathtub, the other, adjacent to Kercher's room, a shower) and four bedrooms. There was a laundry room, with a washing machine, next to the larger bathroom. The outdoor balcony extended along the main hallway, which opened via windowed doors to the outside, overlooking the town hillside and valley below.

Kercher rented one of the upstairs bedrooms since she had arrived in late August. Amanda Knox rented the remaining room, and returning from Germany, moved in on 20 September 2007, when she met Kercher.

The house was closed as a crime scene on 2 November 2007, and Knox was unable to retrieve her jacket, clothes, PC or other items. After the Knox-Sollecito jury visited in April 2009, the house was released, remodelled and re-occupied at the end of 2009.

Forensic investigation

Also see below: Detailed forensics.

The investigating judge assigned to the case read the pathology report at a preliminary hearing for the suspects and found that Kercher's carotid artery had not been ruptured in the attack, and that she likely died a "relatively slow and agonising death." The autopsy results concluded that it took her several minutes to die, as she inhaled her own blood. Her hyoid bone was broken, her superior thyroid artery had been severed by a stab wound, her lungs filled with blood causing asphyxiation and she had suffered bruising to her vagina and perineum.

The body had been found on the floor of Kercher's bedroom, lying on the back, with head towards the front wall and left foot towards the back wall, along the doorway. Blood pools, smears, finger streaks, drips, blood spatter and footprints were found in various locations in the room.

The forensic pathologist, Dr. Lalli, initially concluded that the pattern of bruises, defensive wounds/cuts, and stab wounds could not indicate whether one or multiple attackers had been present. There were larger cuts on her right hand, possibly as defensive wounds (with no one restraining her right hand), but only small cuts on her left hand. Both hands were covered in blood, as if holding her neck after it was stabbed. Dr. Lalli concluded that strangulation was attempted before the stab wounds were made. The large blood pools at the wardrobe cabinet, with hair formations and strap marks on the floor, were considered evidence that the death occurred outside the wardrobe, but that the body had been further disrobed and moved near the bed, after some blood patterns had set. Her clothes were not piled to the side, but rather, placed separately between the body and the doorway.

On 19 November 2007 it was reported in the press that Rudy Guede's fingerprint left in Kercher's blood had been matched to a print in Guede's file at the register of foreign residents at Perugia town hall. Guede matched a bloody left-hand print on a pillow found under the victim's back. The DNA of Rudy Guede was found in many locations in the bedroom. His DNA was found on and inside Kercher's body. Guede's DNA was also found on Kercher's shirt and bra (right side and severed strap) and mixed with Kercher's blood splatter. Guede's DNA was also found on Kercher's handbag (purse). Guede was an acquaintance of the residents of the ground floor of the cottage, a group of 4 young Italian male students, one of whom had been dating Kercher.

Other forensic evidence included an analysis of the metal clasp of Kercher's bra (retrieved in a second forensic search on 18 December 2007), which revealed small traces of DNA matching Sollecito or three other unidentified people, and the DNA testing was disputed (as "contamination") during the trials (see below).

Prosecutions

The three convicted persons are currently being held in separate Italian jails while their cases are under appeal. The appeal process is expected to take a period of years. Rudy Guede is being held in Viterbo, Amanda Knox in Capanne prison near Perugia, and Raffaele Sollecito in Terni.

Rudy Guédé background

Rudy Hermann Guédé (in English, usually 'Guede'), then aged 20, originally from Côte d'Ivoire, was arrested on 20 November 2007 for suspected involvement in the Kercher killing. He was subsequently convicted of murder and sexual assault and sentenced to 30 years, on 28 October 2008. On appeal, the conviction was confirmed but the sentence was reduced to 16 years.

During the week of the murder, Guede was staying in a house a few streets from Sollecito's flat on Via del Canerino, which had been purchased for him by his parents.

Guede had come to Perugia at the age of five with his father, Pacome Roger Guédé, who worked as a labourer in the 1990s. With no mother to watch him, Guede was often taken home by his teachers when school ended, until his father returned from work. His father left Italy when Guede was 16, and he was informally adopted by the family of a wealthy local businessman, Paolo Caporali. Caporali stated that he had been disappointed by Guede's behaviour, describing him as a "tremendous liar", skipping school and being reluctant to do any work. Guede played basketball for the local team, which Caporali sponsored. Young Guede was a natural and played basketball for the Perugia youth team in the 2004–2005 season.

Caporali initially had high hopes for Guede's future, as he seemed to have integrated well, and spoke fluent Italian with a local Umbrian accent. Guede even acquired joint Italian nationality, and he sporadically studied accounting and hotelkeeping.

However, Guede spent more and more time in the big-city nightlife of Milan. His aunt lived in nearby Lecco and Guede sometimes worked in Milan bars. He returned occasionally to Perugia to mingle with the 36,000-student community.

In 2007, Caporali's family offered Guede a final job, as a gardener at a family farmhouse bed and breakfast. Yet Guede hardly ever came to work, and in August 2007 he was fired. One of the four Italian students who lived in the flat below Kercher and Knox said that he remembered Guede as being a "tall, thin guy who always wore basketball shoes and baggy trousers". However, according to Times Online, Guede was known as a small-time drug dealer, a drifter with a prior record of petty crime and drug offenses who, according to some witnesses (not specifically identified by The Times), harassed women and stole from their handbags.

On 27 September 2007, a Perugia bartender heard a noise downstairs in his home and found Guede wandering around with a large knife. He recognised Guede from his work in a nightclub. He confronted Guede, who then ran away.

In early October 2007, there had been a break-in at a nursery school in Milan. During that burglary, a thief stole 2,000 euros and a digital camera. The school's owner reported it to her local police station. Three weeks later, on Saturday, 27 October (5 days before the murder) she arrived at the school early in the morning with a locksmith to fix the front door. There she was confronted by Guede standing inside her office, indicative of another break-in, and she called the police. The police questioned and searched Guede. The police found a laptop and mobile phone, plus a large knife that the owner claimed was stolen from the school kitchen.

In the meantime, on the weekend of 13 October, there had been a break-in at a Perugia law office. In that burglary, an upstairs double-pane window 3.7 m (12 ft) above the ground had been smashed with a large rock. The Perugia police were informed that the thief stole a computer, printer and other items from the law office, and that the alarm system had been disabled. The Milan police later found the laptop computer and a mobile phone also stolen from the law office, in Guede's possession.

In Germany, Guede was discovered riding a train without a ticket and was apprehended by the police, on 20 November 2007, interrogated by German police, and extradited back to Italy on 6 December.

While awaiting trial, Guede was questioned and claimed that he had been invited in by Kercher, they both partially undressed, but he became sick, and while in the bathroom, he had heard a scream and emerged to confront an unknown male attacker carrying a knife in his left hand. Guede claimed that although his clothes became blood-stained, his "Adidas" shoes stayed clean. In March 2008, Guede changed his story, claiming that the unknown knifeman now looked like Sollecito. On 15 May, he asked to make new statements to investigators, and claimed he was not wearing "Adidas" but rather "Nike" shoes, in style Outbreak 2, size 11 (Italian: modello di calzatura (Outbreak 2, misura 11) ).

Rudy Guédé trial and appeal

Rudy Guédé elected for a "fast-track" trial which began on 16 October 2008. He was charged with murder, sexual assault and theft of 300 euros (~US$440), two credit cards and two mobile phones.

Guede's account was that he had met Kercher the night before the murder at a Halloween party which she had attended with her friends. Kercher, he claimed, spent the latter part of Halloween with him, rather than continuing on with her friends. He said that he and Kercher had scheduled a date for the next evening at her home.

On the night of the murder he claimed to have gone to Kercher's home, waiting outside until she arrived and let him in. He claimed that they talked in the kitchen and she then went into her bedroom and discovered that money had been taken from her room. Guede claimed that he calmed Kercher so that she did not phone her flat-mates or parents about the missing money. He claimed that he became intimate with the victim in her bedroom but, feeling sick from a bad kebab, he left the room to use the toilet.

He said that he was listening to music on his iPod, might have heard the doorbell ring and did hear Kercher scream. He claimed that he emerged from the bathroom to see a man whom he did not know holding a knife over the victim while she lay on the floor of her bedroom.

Guede claimed that he struggled with the man and that his hand was cut by a knife. He claimed the man then fled, also claimed that the man said, in perfect Italian: "He is black. If a black man is found, then a black man will be found guilty. Let's go". Guede claims to have used bath towels to stem the flow of blood from Kercher's neck and to wipe up blood. He claimed that he then held Kercher as she gave her last utterance: "A-F", which he wrote on the wall in her blood. He claimed that he left Kercher fully clothed, with the duvet and pillow on the bed and that, in haste and panic, he touched almost everything in the victim's room.

Without calling police or an ambulance for Kercher (he explained that there was no mobile phone nearby and that he was confused), Guede fled, leaving the front door unlocked. He went home to wash the victim's blood off his body and clothing. Later, he went out to the Domus and Shamrock nightclubs.

Investigators called Guede's version of events "a highly improbable fantasy."

DNA tests indicate that Guede had manually or genitally penetrated Kercher before her murder. His DNA was found mixed with Kercher's blood at the crime scene, on Kercher's body, on her bloodstained clothing and on her handbag. His palm print in Kercher's blood was found near the body. DNA tests also revealed that he had used toilet-paper found in the front bathroom.

A few days after the murder, on hearing news reports, Guede fled Perugia by train to Germany. Interpol traced a computer which he used in Germany to access Facebook in order to reply to a message from a Daily Telegraph journalist. In his message, Guede said that he was aware that he was a suspect and wanted to clear his name. On 20 November 2007, the German transport police arrested Guede on a train near Mainz, Germany, where he was caught traveling without a ticket. Following his arrest, German officials noted a cut on his hand.

Guede had originally claimed that he was wearing Adidas shoes at the time of the murder, but on 15 May 2008, he stated that his shoes were Nike Outbreak 2, size 11 (which matched the shoe package found in his Perugia flat), and those shoe-prints matched the 3 or 4 blood shoe-prints found inside Kercher's room, which for Sollecito's Nike Air Force shoes had been ruled incompatible (Italian: valutate incompatibili). He claimed that he had discarded those shoes in a dumpster in Germany, and hence they could not be tested for broken glass embedded from the broken window in Kercher's flat.

Guede's claims about having planned a date with Kercher were dismissed at trial by Judge Paolo Micheli, because Guede had changed the details of where he claimed to have met Kercher, and because friends who had accompanied Kercher for Halloween testified that no meeting between them had taken place. Details about Kercher's Halloween activities and visits to nightclubs had been announced on worldwide news and Internet websites prior to Guede's arrest. Judge Micheli also noted that because Guede insisted the duvet and single pillow remained on the bed (and he didn't move them to the floor), Guede could not explain his Nike blood shoe print on the pillow under the body, with his blood hand print.

On 28 October 2008, Guede was found guilty of the murder and sexual assault of Kercher and sentenced to 30 years in prison. On 22 December 2009, the Corte d'Appello upheld Guede's convictions but reduced his sentence to 16 years. In March 2010, the Corte d'Appello issued a detailed report of its ruling. The judges explained that they reduced Guede's sentence by 14 years because he was the only one of the three defendants to apologise to the Kercher family for his actions. According to his lawyer, Guede continues to assert that he is innocent and will pursue a second and final appeal to the Court of Cassation.

The indictment of Knox and Sollecito was also decided and issued during the Guede trial. From a detailed analysis of the very large number and positions of bloodstains in the flat, and the cuts and bruises sustained by Kercher, Judge Micheli concluded that Kercher had been sexually assaulted and then murdered by multiple attackers. He also concluded that one or more people returned to the crime scene, rearranged the body and tried to fake a break-in, some time after the murder. Judge Micheli concluded that it was suspicious that Sollecito called the Carabinieri military police, saying that a burglary had occurred but "nothing had been taken" when other roommates had not yet returned to inventory their rooms for missing items. He also found suspicious Amanda Knox's claim to have taken a shower in a room which Sollecito described as having a "pool of blood" on the floor (the blood-footprint on the bathmat).

Guede did not initially implicate Knox and Sollecito in the crime. In November of 2007, Guede stated during a phone call to a friend, which was being monitored by the police, that Knox was not present at the scene of the murder. In 2007 and 2008 Guede stated to his birth father – during phone calls being monitored and recorded by the government – that Knox was not present at the scene of the murder, but that a friend of his had been with him.

At his appeal, Guede claimed that, while in the bathroom, he heard Knox's voice arguing with Kercher about some missing money in the bedroom. Guede claimed to have heard a piercing scream. He claimed that he then rushed to the bedroom and saw a man, who he later suggested resembled Sollecito, running away. Guede said that when he glanced out of the window, he saw the silhouette of Knox leaving the house.

The appeal judges theorized that Guede chose to keep quiet as long as he could, because "if he had accused Amanda (Knox) and Raffaele (Sollecito) he would more than probably have exposed himself to retaliatory statements by them." In February 2010, one of Guede's fellow prisoners, Mario Alessi, testified under oath during a deposition that Guede told him that Knox and Sollecito were not involved, and that a second person had been present at the scene of the murder. However, Guede has denied Alessi's claims and stated that he has never talked to anyone about his trial. Guede announced his intention to sue Mario Alessi for defamation. Lucia Musti, the Parma Prosecutor involved with the trial of the prisoner who made the claims, has said that in his opinion Mario Alessi, who is currently serving life imprisonment for the killing of a small child, might just be seeking a way to obtain benefits, although he did not explain what those "benefits" might be. She said that she considers Alessi to be untrustworthy.

In May 2010, Guede, who continues to maintain his innocence, filed a second appeal. This will be heard by Italy's highest court, the Court of Cassation, but no date has yet been set.

Amanda Knox

Amanda Marie Knox was, at the time of Kercher's murder, a 20-year-old University of Washington language student from Seattle, Washington. She was in Perugia attending the University for Foreigners for one year, studying Italian, German and creative writing. She stayed in the bedroom next to Meredith in the Kercher-Knox upstairs flat. In her short time in Italy, Knox did not know Guede, but had been introduced to him once. Knox met her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito at a classical music concert eight days before the murder. Sollecito and Guede had never met. Some media reports referred to Knox as "Foxy Knoxy", a nickname she had been given for skills on the football pitch as a child and was used by herself as a nickname for her MySpace account.

Knox's parents, who divorced when she was two, visited her frequently during her pre-trial detention, maintaining her innocence.

Knox was arrested on the morning of 6 November 2007. The prosecution against Knox and Sollecito contended that they were involved with Guede in the sexual assault and murder of Kercher, in an attempted sex orgy in which Kercher would not cooperate, and that they had returned to the crime scene to move the body and stage a break-in. Knox contended that she was not present during the murder, had no association with Guede, and had no reason to murder Kercher, whom she regarded as her friend. Knox's defence claimed that there was no evidence placing Knox in the bedroom where the murder occurred. The defence also asserted that there were 14 traces at the crime scene of an unknown person, who was not any of the accused.

Knox's DNA was found on two of the knives kept in Sollecito's kitchen drawer for cooking, According to the prosecutor, a small amount of Kercher's DNA was found on one of the two knives. At trial, the defence countered that Knox's DNA would normally be on the knife because she used knives for cooking at Sollecito's house. According to the defence, no material on the knife could be determined to be Kercher's DNA since it was "low copy DNA" which is not considered to produce reliable results. Knox and Sollecito's defence teams also asserted that this knife was not the lethal weapon because it did not match two of the three wounds and tested negative for blood. However, a forensic evidence expert for the prosecution testified that it was compatible with one of the wounds on Kercher's neck, but that two other wounds might have been inflicted by a different weapon;

There was no forensic evidence, such as DNA, hair, fibre, blood or skin, directly indicating that Knox had been in the bedroom where Kercher was sexually assaulted and murdered. The only fingerprints of Knox which were found in the apartment were those matched to a glass in the kitchen sink. Knox's fingerprints were not found in Kercher's bedroom, nor her own bedroom. Mixed samples of Knox's DNA and Kercher's blood were found in the apartment, including in the bathroom sink and in Filomena's room. The defence argued that Knox's DNA should be expected to be present there in the ordinary course of her use of the apartment and bathroom as a resident of the cottage.

Knox attracted attention for her demeanour during police questioning and the trial. For instance, she was observed cartwheeling while waiting to be questioned by police. However, Knox and her family explained this as a yoga-type exercise intended to reduce tension in a distressing situation. It was also reported that Knox had earlier written a story about the drugging and rape of a young woman for a school assignment and posted it online. Knox admitted to using marijuana on occasion, including the evening on which Kercher's murder occurred.

The prosecution argued that there is substantial circumstantial evidence linking both Knox and Sollecito to the crime, which the defence contested. On 4 December 2009, Knox was convicted by the Corte d'Assise of Perugia of all counts except theft and was sentenced to 26 years in prison.

Knox now has available to her two levels of appeal of her conviction in accordance with the rules of Italian Criminal Procedure. The first appeal is to the Corte d'Appello (Court of Appeal), which will retry the case, including making findings of fact in a trial de novo. The judgment of the appeals court can then be appealed to the Court of Cassation, which is the Supreme Court of Italy.

Raffaele Sollecito

Raffaele Sollecito, from Giovinazzo, Bari, was 23 years old, at the time of the murder, and nearing the completion of a degree in computer engineering at the University of Perugia, which he finished awaiting trial in prison. He had been the boyfriend of Knox for about two weeks. Sollecito is from an affluent family, the son of a urologist from Bari. He did not know Guede and claimed never to have heard of his name prior to news reports about the murder.

Sollecito collected knives and swords and often carried a flick-knife in his pocket. When he was initially questioned by police, a flick knife was found in his possession, but was ruled out as a possible murder weapon.

Sollecito claimed that he was in his flat and spent the evening using his computer on the night of the murder. Detectives have said that his alibi is not substantiated by records of his internet service provider, though a private detective working for Sollecito disputed this. The defence has argued that the hard drives of three computers belonging to Sollecito and Knox (and Kercher), destroyed by the prosecution's computer expert when he performed examinations of them, had contained exculpatory evidence. Like Knox, Sollecito admits to having smoked marijuana on the day of the murder and said that he is unable to remember whether Knox was with him on the evening of the murder.

The prosecution claimed that his shoe-print was found in blood on a bed linen in Kercher's room, and that his DNA was on a severed bra clasp, but the DNA testing was disputed (as "contamination") during the trials (see below).

On 4 December 2009, Sollecito was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Like Knox, Sollecito will next proceed through the two-level appeal process in accordance with the rules of Italian Criminal Procedure.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito trial

The trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito began on 16 January 2009, with much attention from the media. In November 2008, they had been indicted by Judge Paolo Micheli, who had presided over the Guede trial in October 2008. They were charged with murder, sexual assault, simulating a crime (burglary), carrying a knife, and theft of 300 euros (~US$440), two credit cards and two mobile phones.

Personnel involved

The head prosecutor in the trial was Giuliano Mignini. In January 2010, Mignini was convicted by a Florence court for "abuse of office". The court ruled, that he was exceeding his powers by tapping the phones of police officers and journalists investigating the separate and still unsolved Monster of Florence serial killings.. Mignini appealed his initial conviction, stating his innocence, and remains free and in office for the time being.
The assistant prosecutor was Manuela Comodi. The chief judge was Giancarlo Massei, with deputy judge Beatrice Cristiani. A panel of eight judges (the two professional judges and six lay judges) was assembled to hear the case and determine the verdicts. Knox was represented in Italy by attorneys Luciano Ghirga and Carlo Dalla Vedova. Raffaele Sollecito was defended by attorney Giulia Bongiorno. Investigations had been assisted by personnel from Rome. The forensic biologist Patrizia Stefanoni, who had collected evidence at the crime scene, testified during the trial. There were many other witnesses, including the other two housemates in the Kercher-Knox flat (Filomena R. and Laura M.) and residents of neighbouring properties.

Courtroom events

On 16 January 2009, the trial began before the Corte d'Assise of Perugia presided over by Judge Giancarlo Massei.

Hearings were held nearly every two weeks (except for a summer break) until 4 December 2009. Rudy Guede attended the trial, but declined to testify. During the first session, judge Massei rejected a request by the Kercher family to hold the trial behind closed doors. He ruled that the trial would be public, but with closed sessions to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

The case was opened for the prosecution, with cross-examination by the defence, involving witnesses from the Postal police, Kercher's housemates and their friends, to establish the events leading up to the murder and on the day the body was found. Housemate Filomena noted that a problem with the front door lock required using a key to re-lock the door. The prosecution sought to prove that the break-in at the murder scene had been staged. Evidence was presented that shards of glass from the broken window were found on top of Filomena's computer and clothes that had been strewn around the room, suggesting that the window had been broken after the room had been ransacked. Filomena testified she had left her room tidy, and nothing major had been stolen.

The prosecution presented a range of forensic evidence which included analysis of the bloody footprints found at the crime scene. In particular, a footprint, believed to be a woman's, was found under the body. It did not match Kercher's shoes but was the right size to be Knox's, although it had not been matched to any of her actual footwear. Another partial blood footprint in the small bathroom was claimed to match Sollecito's foot; however, Sollecito then made a public statement that it was not his footprint. Forensic evidence was produced regarding Kercher's bra strap, with Sollecito's DNA on the clasp, and the kitchen knife retrieved from Sollecito's apartment which had Knox's DNA on the handle and a minute DNA trace on the blade matched to Kercher. The prosecution claimed that this was the murder weapon.

Police evidence was presented to show that Knox and Sollecito did not have provable alibis for the time of the murder. Sollecito maintained that he was at his apartment, using his computer, but police computer analysts told the trial that Sollecito's computer had not been used between 21:10 on the evening of the murder, and 05:32 the next morning. Knox has maintained that she was with Sollecito at the time, but in his statement to police, he said that he could not remember if she was with him or not. Their version of events was further contradicted by a homeless man, who testified that he had seen Knox and Sollecito "chatting animatedly" on a basketball court, within sight of Kercher's house, "around five times" between 9.30pm and midnight on the night of the murder. A Perugia shopkeeper gave evidence that Knox had gone to her supermarket at 07:45 on the morning after the murder, a time at which Knox was, according to her own account, still at home with Sollecito.

In June 2009, the defence lawyers began to present their case. The central point of Knox's defence was that there was absolutely no physical evidence such as samples of DNA, hair, fibre or fingerprints indicating that Knox had been present when Kercher was killed, evidence which, due to the violent nature of the crime, would have been found if Knox had actually been involved.

Knox testified for the first time on 12 June 2009, pleading innocence. She told the court that she had been with Sollecito in his apartment on the night of the murder. The defence pointed out that, despite having put forward several different theories, the prosecution had produced no convincing evidence of a motive for murder. Knox testified that she regarded Kercher as her friend and had no reason to kill her. She also testified that during her interrogation by the police and prosecutor she had been intimidated, threatened with incarceration and hit on the head, causing her to give false testimony implicating Patrick Lumumba. Asked at trial to identify the police officer who had struck her, she was not able to, though. The Court of Cassation had ruled her remarks during part of her initial questioning were inadmissible because no lawyer had been present. They were, however, admissible in the concurrent action against Knox for falsely accusing Lumumba. Her voluntary handwritten note partially retracting her statements was also available to the court during the trial.

The defence sought to show that Guede was the lone killer. Two Perugia lawyers and a school director testified on June 26-27, 2009, that Rudy Guede had been caught with a large (16-inch, 40-cm) stolen knife inside a closed Milan school on 27 October 2007 (5 days before the murder) with a laptop PC reported stolen 14 October 2007 and a mobile phone from a Perugia law office burgled by breaking an upstairs window with a rock. One of the solicitors stated that Guede had appeared outside the law office 2 days later. Guede claimed that he had bought both the stolen PC and phone at a train station in Milan (far north of Perugia). The school director testified that a small amount of money was also found to be missing when she found Guede looking inside a cabinet in the school office following Guede's alleged break-in. An expert witness for the defence testified that the window of Kercher's flat had been broken from the outside and presented a video of stones shattering similar windows (but without shutters).

The defence challenged the prosecution's DNA evidence, suggesting that the quantity of DNA matched to Kercher on the "double DNA" knife was too small to be reliably tested and that, in any case, that knife only matched one of the three wounds in Kercher's neck. The bra clasp had been logged, but not collected, in the initial police crime scene investigation and the defence argued that it could have been contaminated with Sollecito's DNA some time between the murder and its being finally tested. Furthermore, the defence pointed out that there was not a single piece of Knox's DNA found in Kercher's bedroom, where the crime had been committed.

Towards the end of November, the prosecution and defence began summing up their cases. On 4 December 2009, Knox was convicted by the Corte d'Assise of Perugia of all counts except theft and was sentenced to 26 years in prison. Sollecito was found guilty of all five charges attributed to him and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The decision was delivered by the presiding judge at around 11:45 pm local time, following 13 hours of deliberation. The final hours leading up to the verdict were closely covered by American television stations across the country utilizing "countdown" clocks on their screens.

Judges' report and appeal process

On 4 March 2010, the Corte d'Assise of Perugia released a 427-page report, setting forth the judges' opinion in the case. In its report, the Court determined that Guede, not Knox or Sollecito, was the main instigator of the violent attack against Kercher and that Knox and Sollecito had acted without malice or premeditation in their involvement with the killing. The Court found that the murder was "without planning, without any animosity or grudge against the victim", but that Knox and Sollecito, influenced by drugs, had "actively participated" in helping Guede to sexually assault Kercher. The panel of judges apparently rejected some of the "more lurid" prosecution claims, especially those based on Knox's behaviour, such as her cart-wheeling in the police station in the days after the murder: instead, the judges' decision was based on the forensic evidence presented. In particular, the Court concluded that one bloody footprint found on the bathroom mat belonged to Sollecito, while a shoeprint in a bedroom was made by Knox. The judges concluded that Knox and Sollecito had stabbed Kercher in the neck using two different knives, but after the murder they had covered the body with a duvet in "a sort of repentence for what had been done". The Court further believed that Knox and Sollecito had staged the apparent break-in at the house to make it appear that Kercher had been killed by an intruder. They went on to say they believed that Knox had attempted to shift the blame by falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba, in order to "put the investigators onto the wrong track" despite her having "no motive for spite, enmity or revenge toward him which could justify such a serious accusation".

Theodore Simon, the Philadelphia-based international criminal law expert on Knox's defence team, said that he was "heartened" by what he read and called the Court's report "the first step in having Amanda's wrongful conviction overturned." According to Simon:

"The Court unequivocally rejected the prosecution's ever changing theories of the case by concluding there was no planning, no premeditation and this was not the result of any resentment. After review and discussion with Italian counsel it appears that the motivation contains internal inconsistencies and relies upon conjecture and unproven facts....There are substantial grounds upon which to base an appeal."

Under Italian Criminal Procedure, the defence and prosecution have 45 days from the date of the publication of the judge's memorandum to submit an appeal to the Court of Appeals, utilizing in part the memorandum. In their appeal, the defence must outline the defects in the court proceedings and rationale leading to their convictions, which they contend was unjust and incorrect. Under Italian Criminal Procedure the Court of Appeals can conduct a trial de novo, or new trial, during which it can reexamine the evidence and proceedings, considering the objections set forth in the appeal. One of Sollecito's lawyers, Luca Maori, responded to the filing of the report by saying that he will refute the ruling "point by point."

Knox's family issued a statement, saying:

"We have asked Amanda's lawyers to immediately begin the process of appeal. We know she is innocent as there is no forensic evidence that puts her in Meredith's room, no evidence of her at the scene of this horrible crime. Meredith was Amanda's friend. They liked each other and spent time together when not in school. Amanda would not hurt Meredith.... a lot of conjecture in these motivations, a number of discrepancies as well as a number of inconsistencies and contradictions; as well as conclusions not supported by evidence."

In a later interview with station KOMO TV, Knox's mother called the report "ludicrous" and the number of inconsistencies in the report "overwhelming" and therefore providing a strong basis for appeal.

CBS News private investigator Paul Ciolino commented that the report contained "lies, half-truths, and nonsense." Ciolino stated that the verdict against Knox remains "more about anti-Americanism than about justice."

A researcher at the Innocence Project has already begun work on evaluating the DNA evidence.

On 15 April 2010, the prosecution filed an appeal, in which they argued that Knox's and Sollecito's sentences were too lenient. They commented: "In their post-verdict report the judges said this was a murder for purely casual reasons and if that is the case then this is a crime that calls for the maximum penalty of life. That is the request that we made at the time and that is a request we are repeating now. This was a particularly brutal and horrendous crime and we are calling for the punishment to fit that crime - we have to remember poor Meredith in this tragic episode."

Commenting on the prosecution's appeal filing, Theodore Simon, a lawyer for Knox, said that her appeal will be filed shortly and it "will profoundly address the wrongfulness of the conviction and recognize the futility of the prosecution's appeal." According to Anne Bremmer, an attorney for the Friends of Amanda support group, the appeal filed by Giuliano Mignini is an example of "a vindictive prosecution and a show of force that would never happen in the U.S.". A member of the Knox family commented on the prosecution's appeal filing by stating: "From all outward appearances, it seems like more of a harassment." The likelihood of any jury imposing a life sentence in this case has been described as "remote."

Defence points of appeal

Contending that prosecutor Giuliano Mignini and deputy prosecutor Manuela Comodi had "completely botched the case", Knox's lawyers, seeking to overturn her conviction, filed an appeal spanning more than 300 pages on 17 April 2010. In their appeal, the defence lawyers disclosed that a new witness had been found who can prove that Knox and Sollecito were not involved in Kercher's killing. The appeal also asserts that the DNA evidence in the case was seriously flawed. The Knox defence lawyers challenge the fact that the lower court refused their request that an independent DNA expert be allowed to testify at the trial. They seek to have that additional analysis of the DNA evidence introduced during the second trial at the Court of Appeals. Alessandro Canali, an independent Italian lawyer not involved in the case commented: "The DNA is so flawed, Knox should never have been convicted."

According to Knox's lawyer, Luciano Ghirga of Perugia, the appeal "is a total repudiation of all points of the sentence...It includes the first days of the interrogation, the DNA evidence and the traces detected with luminol. We reiterate the innocence of Amanda and remain convinced there is no proof of her presence at the scene of the crime."

It has also emerged that the prosecution has failed to deliver to the defence all the paperwork and documentation related to the forensic testing. Chris Mellas, Knox's step-father, stated: "Our lawyers asked for everything, every file and record relating to the forensic testing. We were given some of the stuff, like what was on Meredith's shoes or a juice glass but not the full reports on the knife used or the bra-clasp." Deputy prosecutor Manuela Comodi brushed off the request for all forensic documentation and added: "They have everything they need. That is enough."

The defence lawyers have asserted that Knox, having been a suspect during the time that she was being interrogated, was denied her basic legal rights during that period and was pressured into making damaging statements. According to Anne Bremmer, attorney for the Friends of Amanda group, the appeal "attacks the sufficiency of the evidence — there was no forensic evidence to connect her to the case, not a hair, not a fibre, no DNA whatsoever." The appeal also challenges prosecutor Giuliano Mignini's constantly changing theories of motive in the case and the prosecution's "contradictory evidence."

According to the US attorney on the defence team, Theodore Simon: "The complete absence of physical evidence, including DNA, will win over a new jury...It's absolutely clear that there is no forensic evidence of any sort of Amanda Knox in the room where Meredith Kercher was tragically killed or on her person. And given the fact this was a violent murder one would think there would be."

Commenting on the disputed DNA found on a knife, Simon said: "Many people in the United States have come to believe that conventional DNA testing will convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent, and we believe that, as well. However, most of the public is unaware that the type of testing that was employed in this case was very controversial, and it was an unreliable test known as low-copy number or low-template number. This is not recognized as being truly accepted and reliable and is subject to unreliable results. So we have consulted some of the world's leading experts...we believe this is simply unreliable testing yielding unreliable results."

The lawyers for Raffaele Sollecito also filed a lengthy appeal of his conviction comprising over 270 pages. His lawyer Luca Maori said: "An innocent man has been convicted and has spent three years behind bars for something he did not do. We aim to fight this conviction and free him on appeal." The appeal will proceed as a trial de novo (new trial). This new trial is expected to take place in autumn 2010 before the Appellate Court of Assizes, presided over by Judge Emanuele Medoro.

Various controversies

Theories on motive for the murder

A source of controversy in the case has been the lack of motive to explain why Knox and Sollecito would want to murder Kercher. The prosecution's theory on the motive varied during the course of the investigation and the trial. The initial theory centred on a Halloween ritual sex-orgy killing, then later evolved into a sex-game-turned-violent theory.

The prosecution later claimed that the killing was motivated by Knox's alleged desire for revenge against a roommate who was too prissy and critical of Knox.

The hearing on the indictment of Knox and Sollecito was held in closed session in October 2008. Following this, Sollecito’s lawyer Luca Maori described the prosecution's theory on the motive for the murder as being part of a "satanic rite". Although the prosecution has never used the term "satanic" in open court, it has been widely reported in the press and linked with the fact that the murder occurred on the day after Halloween, late on All Saints Day (All Souls Day).

The Italian newspaper Messaggero Umbria, in an article on 19 October 2008, quoted Mignini as follows: "...the three, and especially Sollecito, were very susceptible to 'cultural' influences...That night was the feast day of the Saints, the Catholic 'heir' to the Celtic new year Samhain, with all the implications which are focused on the eve of the feast day, that is the night between 31 October and 1 November."

The Italian newspaper La Nazione wrote on 20 October 2008 that, according to the police theory, "Meredith could have died on the evening of 31 October because that night was favourable for a 'sexual rite' in accordance with the traditions of Halloween."

Peter Popham, writing in The Independent, said that Prosecutor Mignini "decided only a few days after Kercher died that the murder was the culmination of an orgy in which Knox, Sollecito and one other person were involved". He references Il Tempo newspaper's account of the closed session where they say that Mignini told the court that the murder, “was premeditated and was in addition a ‘rite’ celebrated on the occasion of the night of Hallowe’en. A sexual and sacrificial rite...In the intention of the organisers, the rite should have occurred 24 hours earlier” – on Hallowe’en itself – “but on account of a dinner at the house of horrors, organised by Meredith and Amanda’s Italian flatmates, it was postponed for one day. The presumed assassins contented themselves with the evening of 1 November to perform their do-it-yourself rite, when for some hours it would again be the night of All Saints.”

According to one report of the closed hearing: "Mr Mignini saw the scene so clearly in his mind that he was able to describe it to the judge in detail: Meredith on her knees before the wardrobe, Rudy holding her immobile, Raffaele grasping one arm, Amanda in front of her, pricking her throat teasingly with the knife – until the blade in her hand struck home." "To prove it," he told the judge, "the only thing missing was a video camera in the room."

Press reports also stated that prosecutor Mignini claimed that police had found a hoard of the Japanese “manga” comics in Sollecito’s apartment. Mignini claimed that many depicted the brutal slaying of naked “vampire women” with blood covering furniture and walls – in his view, the way detectives found Kercher. Mignini theorized that Sollecito and Knox had been influenced by the comic books to kill Kercher, who had worn a vampire costume on Halloween.

Judge Micheli, who conducted the hearing on the indictment of Knox and Sollecito, dismissed as “fantasy” prosecutor Mignini's claims that the sex game in which Kercher is alleged to have died was inspired by Satanic rites, Halloween rituals or violent Japanese ‘manga’ comics about dead vampires.

Subsequently, at the commencement of the trial, prosecutor Mignini presented a theory that the murder was motivated by a sex game turned violent. However, at the conclusion of the trial, prosecutor Mignini changed the motive to a desire on Knox's part to retaliate against Kercher for being too "prissy" and critical of Knox. Mignini told the jury that he could imagine Knox saying to Kercher: "Ah, you were pretending to be such a little saint...Now we are going to show you." A second prosecutor conceded that the motive was not known.

Guede's entire fast-track trial and some parts of the trial of Knox and Sollecito, where the attack on Kercher was described in detail, were held as closed sessions without journalists, or the public, being present, so the full details of the prosecution's theories are not in the public domain.

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Claims of police mistreatment

On her fourth day of questioning, Amanda Knox, then a 20-year-old student, was questioned at various times during the night of 5 and 6 November 2007. Knox testified on 12 June 2009 that she had accompanied Sollecito to the police station for his interview by the police because she did not want to be alone. While working on her schoolwork, she was approached by the police and taken into a separate room where police officers began questioning her. According to Knox, she was questioned first by a large group of police officers and then by prosecutor Mignini.

Knox testified that during her interrogation by the police she was subjected to a great deal of pressure and intimidation, was called a "stupid liar" and was hit on the head twice. According to Knox, the police told her that they had solid evidence that she was at the scene of the murder and that her inability to remember being there might be due to a traumatic mental block interfering with her memory. Knox claimed that she was pressured, with the threat of 30 years in prison, to recall suggested details. According to Knox, this pressuring led her to make certain statements and then later to make her written declaration of 5:45 am on 6 November 2007, still with no sleep, placing herself at the murder scene and implicating Patrick Lumumba as the murderer of Kercher. Knox had no lawyer or official interpreter present to assist her. She claimed that she had been dissuaded from seeking an attorney. Since by 5:45 am Knox was a suspect, Italian law prohibited her interrogation without her attorney present, so that part of her interrogation was unlawful.

Hours later, Knox retracted some of her statements. She explained in a written note that the intimidation she had experienced during the interrogation had caused her fear and confusion. Knox wrote in part: "In regards to this "confession" that I made last night, I want to make clear that I'm very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion. Not only was I told I would be arrested and put in jail for 30 years, but I was also hit in the head when I didn't remember a fact correctly. I understand that the police are under a lot of stress, so I understand the treatment I received."

A female police officer testifying at the trial denied that Knox was pressured, and said, she had questioned Knox "firmly but politely." When describing her interrogation to her family, Knox told them: "I've never been so scared in my life." Knox's stepfather, Mellas claimed that the policewoman, who he said hit his stepdaughter on the head, was already facing charges of beating other suspects in previous inquiries.

The prosecution denied Knox's claims of having been coerced or intimidated into accusing Lumumba. In January 2010, Knox and her legal team were informed that due to her testimony at the trial she would be charged with defamation of the police and face a further criminal trial. If found guilty, the penalty is a fine and/or a prison sentence of between two and six years. The prosecutor and/or police are also prosecuting, suing or investigating (or have threatened to do so) both of Knox's parents and other individuals or news organizations for making statements the prosecutor or police consider defamatory.

DNA disputes about bra clasp

The Rome forensic lab made an analysis of the metal clasp of Kercher's severed bra strap (retrieved in a second forensic search on 18 December 2007), which revealed small traces of DNA matching Sollecito and at least three other unknown persons, combined with the victim's DNA.

The defence argued that the DNA on the metal clasp, which had been severed from the bra, could have been contaminated when it was moved on the floor, six weeks after the murder, or in the forensic laboratory in Rome. The judge at the trial of Guede acknowledged that the DNA sample was considered small, but described the claim of contamination at the laboratory as making "no sense", since there was no material from which such contamination could have come, and so "the risk would have been the loss of traces found there, not the risk of somehow discovering new traces". However, the judge did not address the issue of leftover or transferred DNA from numerous other Sollecito personal items being analyzed in the Rome laboratory, before the clasp was retrieved on 18 December 2007. Also, two witnesses testified that, when the body was found, one of the postal-police officers immediately stepped past Sollecito at the doorway, into the room (without shoe-covers) to check for life-signs under the quilt (although during the trial, the officer denied such entry), and the bra clasp had been moved over 1 metre (39 inches) across the floor when recovered 47 days later.

Claim of bleaching of the crime scene

The police originally claimed that the flat of Kercher and Knox had been cleaned with bleach, in an attempt to destroy evidence. However, blood smears, drops, and blood footprints were found in several rooms of the flat, including the entrance area, Filomena's room, Kercher's hallway, Kercher's room, and the nearby bathroom. During the Knox-Sollecito trial, several witnesses talked about the possible use of bleach. Police found two bottles of bleach at Sollecito's apartment. Sollecito's former housekeeper testified at trial that she had asked Sollecito to buy bleach months earlier for general housekeeping purposes and that when she stopped working for Sollecito in September 2007, there were one and a half bottles of bleach at his house. Sollecito's current housekeeper also testified that there was no smell of bleach in his apartment during those days in early November 2007.

Mobile phone evidence

Phone records of Amanda Knox revealed calls on the day of the killing between her and Patrick Lumumba, her manager at the Le Chic bar, which were discussed during her police interview as possible evidence of a pre-planned rendezvous. The judge in the Guede trial explained the lack of calls with Guede by saying Guede's phone was in the possession of the police days before the murder.

The death of Kercher was estimated at approximately 11 pm. The prosecution noted that Knox and Sollecito turned their phones off on the evening of the murder at around 8:40 pm. Phone records showed that Sollecito's phone was off 3 nights in October, at approximately 7–7:30 pm.

Media coverage in general

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The case has received extensive media coverage in Italy, Britain and the United States, with Knox receiving significantly more attention than Sollecito or Guede. Knox has been portrayed in some articles as a femme fatale who took part in killing her friend in a sex game and alternatively as an innocent young girl caught up in unjustified court proceedings in a foreign country. Following the crime, Knox's MySpace website became the subject of media scrunity.

Appearing on the U.S. television show Larry King Live, prominent New York lawyer John Q. Kelly said: "This case is probably the most egregious international railroading of two innocent young people that I have ever seen."

Peter Popham wrote an opinion piece for The Independent in which he raised doubts about the evidence against Knox and Sollecito and claimed that the prosecution's leaking of details about the case to the media was intended to prejudice public opinion and "makes miscarriages of justice horribly likely". Timothy Egan wrote in the New York Times that the Italian media frenzy and tabloid sensationalism against Knox had tainted public perceptions of her.

Knox's family has claimed that she was convicted because of a wider culture clash. Italy's judicial process was criticised by Knox's supporters. The Knox family engaged the services of a Seattle-based public relations firm in order to counter what they perceived as a media bias against her.

Anne Bremner, spokeswoman for the "Friends of Amanda" support group, criticised the Italian media for its presentation of the case against Knox. Bremmer stated that the "character assassination" directed against Knox by the Italian media had impaired her chance of obtaining a fair trial because the jury had not been sequestered and was exposed to such sensationalized reporting of the case.

Andrea Vogt, who has covered the story for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said: “In the US media, Knox was largely portrayed as the innocent American abroad being railroaded in a corrupt foreign system. In Europe, she was the sex-crazed diabolical vixen trying to get away with murder. Those covering this story in Perugia for the last two years recognise that neither portrayal is accurate. The case is more complex, with the truth buried beneath all those stereotypes.”

The Italian newspaper La Stampa described Knox's media appeal by saying that she had "the face of an angel – but the eyes of a killer". The BBC spoke of "feverish media coverage", describing Knox as "that most-loved of villains – the middle-class monster whose appearance hides a diabolical soul."

Just before the guilty verdict, the New York Times reported, "Ms. Knox is often portrayed as an innocent girl unwittingly caught up in the Kafkesque Italian justice system. But even one of her lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said that he believed the trial was fair. He added that he “disagreed” with news media coverage that depicted it otherwise."

Issue of prejudicial pretrial publicity and impact on trial

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Lawyers for both Amanda Knox, as well as the Kercher family, noted that the media had influenced either witness testimonies or general perceptions in the case. Francesco Maresca (lawyer for Kercher's family) said, "During the committal hearings, media pressure influenced the testimony of witnesses who had to be marched past television cameras or who were interviewed before they testified." According to her lawyers, family and some media, there was extensive prejudicial pretrial publicity against Knox which, they say, tainted the public perception of her. Knox's mother complained that bloggers and newspapers had been free to "assassinate her daughter's character."

Simon Hattenstone of the Guardian newspaper described the situation thus: "This is not simply trial by media, it is trial by Facebook and blog." This negative publicity also included a book and some magazine articles published just prior to her trial that contained purported excerpts from her private diary and notebooks. These materials had originally been seized by the police. Copies of the diary and notebooks were somehow acquired by the journalist. The book included details purporting to be about Knox's sex life.

At the time of the publication of the book, the Knox family stated: "This seems to be yet another example of the continued leaks designed to harm Amanda's character as there is no evidence to tie her to the brutal and senseless murder of Meredith Kercher. She is innocent." In January 2009, just as her trial was getting underway, Knox filed a lawsuit against the author, Fiorenza Sarzanini, director of Corriere della Sera Paolo Mieli, RCS Quotidiani S.p.A. and RCS Libri S.p.A. magazines, claiming that allegations in the book and magazines were false and that he had no right of access to her private diary and notebooks. According to her lawyers, the book was part of a "smear campaign' against Knox, focusing on her alleged sexual obsessions. The lawyers for Knox claimed information from Knox's notebooks and diary had been "reported in a prurient manner, aimed solely at arousing the morbid imagination of readers." Her lawyers claimed: "This crosses the limits of legitimate exercise of the rights of the press." They contended that Knox had suffered from "incredible and misleading" media coverage that was "in violation of the general principles safeguarding personal information and dignity." The Knox lawyers also objected to the way their client had been depicted in the press in general, claiming the media had done "everything in its power" to create "an absolutely negative portrayal" of their client. The lawyers filed complaints with a Milan court and with Italy's privacy watchdog.

In March of 2010, Knox won her lawsuit against the Italian author for invading her privacy. According to Knox's Italian lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, the verdict in Knox's favour is further proof that the jury in the criminal case–in which she was convicted of sexual assault and other charges– was negatively influenced by prejudicial publicity against her, and that the prosecution's characterization of her was "completely wrong".

Reactions to the trials and convictions

On 4 December 2009, the day the verdict was announced in the criminal trial, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell of the State of Washington released a statement expressing her concerns:

I am saddened by the verdict and I have serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted this trial. The prosecution did not present enough evidence for an impartial jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Knox was guilty. Italian jurors were not sequestered and were allowed to view highly negative news coverage about Ms. Knox. Other flaws in the Italian justice system on display in this case included the harsh treatment of Ms. Knox following her arrest; negligent handling of evidence by investigators; and pending charges of misconduct against one of the prosecutors stemming from another murder trial."

Senator Cantwell indicated her intention to seek assistance from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Secretary Clinton herself has not commented on the case, but a spokesman for the US Department of State stated at a press conference on 7 December 2009 that the State Department has followed this case very closely and will continue to follow the case during the appeal process. He stated that the State Department's role is to ensure that any American citizen is treated fairly, according to local law. He added that, in this case, "It is still in the early days but...we haven't received any indications necessarily that Italian law was not followed". He also stated "This is an ongoing process" and "It does not mean that we are not going to have some kind of statement as the process goes forward." The State Department has stated its intention to hold ongoing discussions about the case with Senator Cantwell and to continue staying in contact with the Knox family to monitor the situation during the appeal process.

Knox, her family and supporters in the U.S. and around the world maintain that she has been unjustly convicted.

John Kercher, Meredith's father, has described the suggestion of anti-American bias during the trial as "ludicrous", saying: "The Americans seem completely ignorant to the fact that there was a mass of evidence other than the DNA. I don't blame them because they are going on what they have seen and read. But it is upsetting for my family".

According to press reports, Democratic Left Member of Italy's Parliament Walter Verini said that on 9 December 2009 he had a conversation with Knox during which she stated that her "rights were respected" in the trial and that she still had faith in Italian justice. However, the Knox family issued a statement expressly denying reports that Knox had told him that she was satisfied with the result of the trial. They stated that Knox was "devastated by the verdict" and that she had been misquoted in the press. They stated their view that Knox merely expressed to Verini her satifaction with the work done by her lawyers, not approval of the trial or verdict. They cited the incident as one of many examples of the misinformation that has been circulated about Knox in the media, stating: "It is unfortunate that how Amanda is portrayed, what she says and how she acts, has been so consistently inaccurate over the last two years. Unfortunately, these inaccuracies, reported and repeated by the media, have resulted in a negative picture of who Amanda really is."

During a prison visit from a delegation of the Italy-USA Foundation, Knox is reported to have said: “I am waiting and always hoping. I don’t understand many things, but I have to accept them, things that for me don’t always seem very fair.”

Most of the mainstream UK media reported on the guilty verdicts and included quotes from the Kercher and Knox families on their reactions while some focused more on the Kercher family's reaction to the verdict. In the days immediately following the verdict, they published various opinion pieces, mainly focusing on Knox, with some sympathetic toward her and others not. The weekly Perugia court hearings were suspended, pending a 90-day documentation period before appeals can be filed. Media interest remains high in the U.S.

Civil actions

Lawsuit filed by Kercher's family

Kercher's family filed a civil suit for $33 million (approximately £20 million or €22 million) against anyone found guilty of the murder.

Patrick Lumumba lawsuit against Knox

Patrick Lumumba, the man Knox originally accused of murdering Kercher, sued Knox for more than $500,000 (approximately £300,000 or €330,000) in damages, but the outcome of the civil action was that the court ordered Knox to pay Lumumba €40,000 (approximately $60,000 or £36,000) compensation. Lumumba also pursued compensation from the Italian authorities for unjust imprisonment and the loss of his business and, in December 2009, a court awarded €8,000 (approximately equivalent to $12,000 or £7,200 as of December 2009) in damages. In February 2010, Lumumba announced that he would be taking his claim for compensation from the Italian authorities to the European Court of Human Rights.

Detailed forensics

The Italian forensic police (Servizio di Polizia Scientifica), from Rome (100 miles or 160 km south of Perugia), were immediately contacted to process the crime scene on 2 November 2007. They also processed evidence seized from other sites. The various investigations included:

• Kercher-Knox house at Via della Pergola 7 (the downstairs was also searched; see above)

• 1st visit: 2–3 November 2007 (body examined 00:45, 3 November)
• 2nd visit: 18 December 2007 (bra clasp re-found under Kercher desk)

• Sollecito's flat (apartment) on Via Garibaldi, purchased by parents
• Guede's flat (found empty package for Nike shoes)
• Sollecito's automobile (found no evidence of blood or knives)
• Lumumba's pub Le Chic (closed November-December 2007)

Each site was closed for a different length of time. Intruders broke into the main crime scene multiple times, such as in February 2009, when they ransacked the upstairs and left 4 kitchen knives and candles in various rooms.

Detailed timeline

The following is a list of events that occurred on 1–2 November 2007, with each event documented by a footnote to the source:

• 20:18:12 Amanda Knox receives a text message (sms) from manager Lumumba telling her not to come to work that night
• 20:35:48 Amanda sends text message (sms) reply to Patrick Lumumba, turns off phone a bit later.
• 20:42:56 (221 seconds) Sollecito receives phone call from his father.
• 20:55 Kercher friend Sophie arrives home after leaving Kercher walking along street
• 21:15 Kercher returns to flat after seeing DVD film with friends (estimated time)
• 22:00 Kercher UK mobile phone dials her London bank but wrong prefix code prevents call
• 22:13 Kercher's UK mobile phone receives call (unanswered) through another mobile station
• 22:25 Rudy Guede claims he left Meredith dying around this time & went home along backstreets
• 22:30–23:00 Kercher killed by Knox and Sollecito about this time (according to result of the trial)
• 06:02:59 Sollecito mobile phone receives text msg (sms) sent by his father at 23:41
• 11:38 Phone brought to Postal Police is traced to Filomena R.
• 11:50 Postal police record that Lana B. & daughter (called) say they do not know this Filomena
• 12:00? Postal police are called by Lana's daughter about finding phone #2 (UK) in garden
• 12:07:12 (duration 16 seconds) Amanda calls English number of Kercher
• 12:08:44 (68 seconds) Amanda calls Filomena (about door open & blood spots)
• 12:11:02 (3 seconds) Amanda calls Italian phone of Kercher, call forwarded to voicemail.
• 12:11:54 (4 seconds) Amanda calls Kercher UK phone again
• 12:12:35 (36 seconds) Filomena R. calls Amanda
• 12:20:44 (65 seconds) Filomena R. calls Amanda again
• 12:34:56 (48 seconds) Filomena R. calls Amanda.
• 12:35 2 Postal police claim they arrive outside flat, meet Knox/Sollecito who talk of broken glass & blood
• 12:40 (67 seconds) Sollicito receives call from his father.
• 12:46 Postal police station logs receipt of mobile phone #2 delivered by neighbor's daughter
• 12:47:23 (88 seconds) Amanda call's mother in Seattle.
• 12:50:34 (39 seconds) Sollecito calls his sister in the Carabinieri, a different branch of the Italian police
• 12:51:40 (169 seconds) Sollecito calls "112" to report theft
• 12:54 (57 seconds) Sollecito calls "112" again,
• 13:00 Filomena R. and her friends arrive at the flat.
• 13:15 Luca A. kicked open Kercher's door, but once stepped inside the room, drew back in horror noticing blood in great abundance and a bare foot (Italian: sangue in gran copia ed un piede nudo) under a quilt.
• 13:15 Inspector B. instructs everyone to leave the house.

Details of Kercher's room

As the main crime scene, the bedroom of Meredith Kercher was extensively analyzed on 2–3 November (with the body) and six weeks later, on 18 December 2007.

In Kercher's bedroom, the body had been found on the floor, lying on the back, with head towards the front wall and left foot towards the back wall (along the doorway). Blood was found on numerous items in the room, including:

some white tennis shoes, blue jeans and a white severed bra on the floor, a zippered blue shirt, and two towels partially or totally soaked in blood. On the bed there was a book with blood at the corner plus two blood patches on the mattress sheet, between a white terrycloth towel with blood smears and a beige woman's handbag of imitation leather (Italian: una borsa da donna in similpelle). Around the floor were patches of blood (some with the imprints of "hair formations") and 3 floormarks with blood "signs of concentric circles" (Italian: segni circolari concentrici) considered to be a foot trail of three bloody shoeprints. Underneath the body was a white pillow, containing a blood handprint. Dried blood pools were found around the wardrobe case in the outside corner of the room, with leather boots standing in the blood.

The DNA of Rudy Guede was matched at many locations in the bedroom. His DNA was matched on and inside Kercher's body, on her shirt, her bra (left side and severed bra clasp), on the zipper of her handbag (purse) and mixed with Kercher's blood spatter. His partial palm print in Kercher's blood was found on a pillow under the body, matched from the 27 October 2007 booking, when Guede had been fingerprinted and charged with carrying a concealed weapon (large kitchen knife) and the stolen PC/phone from the Perugia law office.

The shoe-prints on the floor were matched to the pattern of Nike Outbreak 2 shoes, and an empty package of that Nike pattern had been found at Guede's residence. The shoe-print on the pillow also matched the Nike Outbreak 2 pattern, with the pilowcase folded, but that shoe-print did not match any of the shoes sequestered from Knox's room in the house.

After the house was visited by the judges and lawyers of the Knox-Sollecito trial, the house was released, back to the owners, in mid-April 2009.

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