This story initially aired on April 10, 2008. It was up to date on Sept. 13, 2025.
Amanda Knox, a 20-year-old honors scholar from the University of Washington, adopted her dream when she moved to Perugia, Italy, to review overseas and study Italian. But that dream changed into a nightmare when simply weeks after Amanda’s arrival her roommate was discovered murdered.
Within days of the November 2007 homicide, Amanda and her boyfriend had been arrested as suspects within the killing and located themselves on the middle of a media frenzy.
Do Italian investigators have a stable case towards Amanda, as they declare? Or is she being “railroaded,” as one American non-public investigator put it, in a blind pursuit of justice?
A homicide in Perugia
Growing up in Seattle, Washington, Amanda Knox was an all-American lady. She excelled in athletics and lecturers, as her father Curt remembers: “Dean’s listing in highschool, dean’s listing in faculty, soccer participant since she’s been 5 … all the way in which to the premiere stage.”
Amanda’s mother and father, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, divorced when she was three, however household bonds remained tight. “She loves her household. She talks about that in her blogs, and in her MySpace. That what’s most vital to her is her household, her shut associates,” Edda tells “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant.
After graduating with honors from an elite Jesuit highschool, Amanda went on to the University of Washington the place she found her ardour. “She beloved going to different cultures and studying about them. And she’s actually drawn to languages. She actually knew she wished to review overseas,” Edda explains.
Amanda labored three jobs to get to Perugia, a medieval hill city north of Rome. She rented a room in a home and commenced taking lessons.
Amanda’s years of devoted research and arduous work had been paying off. Just just a few weeks after arriving in Perugia, she emailed a few of her associates again house, writing “I’m truly at one among my happiest locations proper now.”
Amanda’s success additionally included a brand new romance. She’d met a younger, good-looking Italian engineering scholar named Raffaele Sollecito, the 23-year-old son of a physician from Southern Italy.
Amanda had three roommates: two Italian women and Meredith Kercher, a 20-year-old scholar from England.
Amanda even bought a job in a neighborhood bar. “She advised me she should work as a result of she want the cash,” says bar proprietor Patrick Lumumba, who employed her. Lumumba is well-known round city for his music and beneficiant spirit.
Asked what he thought when he first noticed Amanda, Lumumba tells Van Sant, “Good individual … and pleasant.”
But simply six weeks into Amanda’s Italian journey, every part modified. It was Nov. 2, 2007.
“I bought a telephone name early within the morning and it was Amanda. And the very first thing she stated was, ‘I’m at house and I’m all proper. But, I believe any individual’s been in my home,” Edda remembers.
Amanda advised her mom she had spent the night time with Raffaele. That morning, when she got here house to take a bathe and alter garments, she discovered the entrance door was open. No one was house.
“When she bought out of the bathe she seen some blood. She thought perhaps any individual had gotten injured and left shortly and that is why the door was open,” Edda explains.
Amanda began phoning her roommates; she discovered the Italian women, however based on Edda could not observe down Meredith, even after calling her a number of instances.
Asked how she discovered that one thing horrible had occurred in that home, Edda says, “She referred to as me again and advised me that the police had come. Because one of many issues she stated was ‘We cannot discover Meredith and her door is locked.'”
Two officers arrived on the home to analyze and located Amanda and Raffaele standing exterior.
“Police enter the home, begin looking out it,” explains Paolo Sfriso, an Italian investigator who “48 Hours” employed to look at this case. “Meredith’s door is locked. They knock on the door, no one solutions. Nobody is aware of the place she is. They determine to interrupt in her door.”
Inside, there was blood in all places. And on the ground, lined by the blanket from her mattress, was Meredith’s physique.
The final time anybody had seen Meredith alive was 9 p.m. the night time earlier than, when she walked house alone after leaving associates.
Asked what he believes —based mostly on his investigation —occurred after Meredith bought house, Sfriso tells Van Sant, “That is the million-dollar query. Meredith arrives house. Maybe any individual was already inside the home ready for her. Maybe any individual arrived after. There are indicators of what seems to be a break-in.”
Because Amanda and Meredith had been roommates, Amanda shortly turned a key witness. “She stated that they had plenty of questions for her as a result of she was the primary one which had come again to the home. And she wished to assist,” Edda says.
Four days after the homicide, there have been nonetheless no arrests. The college students of Perugia organized a memorial service for Meredith. Noticeably absent had been Amanda and Raffaele: that they had been summoned to police headquarters.
“When the 2 them went down there they separated them into totally different interrogation rooms. And started a questioning course of that lasted for a really very long time over night time,” Amanda’s father Curt says.
Police had been questioning the 2 as a result of they suspected they had been hiding one thing.
After 14 hours of intense police interrogation, with no sleep, no meals, and no lawyer, Amanda dramatically modified her story. “She says that she thinks she was right here, that she hears Meredith scream,” Sfriso says.
When she signed a press release, Amanda was not a witness – she was below arrest.
Three arrests and a police principle
Four days after Meredith’s homicide, Amanda was paraded in entrance of the press on her strategy to jail. Police imagine Amanda took half within the homicide of her roommate. Raffaele was additionally arrested, and surprisingly Amanda’s employer, Patrick Lumumba, was additionally picked up after she named him as Meredith’s assassin.
The arrests got here after Amanda dramatically modified her story. “48 Hours” obtained Amanda’s gorgeous assertion. “I met Patrick on the basketball courts and we went to my condominium … Patrick had intercourse with Meredith … I confusedly keep in mind that he killed her.”
Amanda’s assertion got here after that all-night, 14-hour interrogation.
Next, Italian police developed a principle: that Meredith was murdered after refusing to affix Amanda, Raffaele and Patrick in kinky four-way intercourse.
Like the Italian police, journalist Nick Pisa started looking out the Internet to study concerning the suspects. “They had entries on Facebook …and we had been getting an unimaginable quantity of details about these individuals,” he says.
Like most faculty college students as of late, Amanda and Raffaele shared their lives by the Web; Amanda boasted about alcohol use and informal intercourse.
“She even posted footage of herself exterior a dope store in Amsterdam. We found how she’d been on a prepare and he or she’d admitted having intercourse with a man she’d met on the prepare. We found that she’d written some very weird essays on her Web website which talked about rape,” Pisa says.
“They jumped on that. They noticed the phrase rape and they’re like, ‘Yeah, that is a terrific headline,'” says Madison, a buddy of Amanda’s from Seattle.
On Raffaele’s pages, they discovered he collected knives.
“His expression of admiration for a serial killer,” Van Sant remarks.
“Exactly. And then now we have him with the meat cleaver. Then, now we have Amanda behind the machine gun as effectively,” Pisa says, describing footage of Raffaele posing with a cleaver and Amanda posing behind a machine gun. “It was all simply grist for the mill. It was extra info than you may ever think about on a narrative.”
And the “mill” was the Italian and British press corps that was all around the story.
Perhaps what damned Amanda most was the identify she gave herself on her MySpace account: “Foxy Knoxy.” Some of the headlines within the British press included “The Twisted World of Foxy Knoxy,” “The Dark Angel of Seattle,” “Orgy Of Death,” and “Amanda Was A Drugged-Up Tart.”
“You know, I’ve not learn the British press simply because I knew that was on the market,” Edda reacts, crying. “And that is not my daughter. And that is not, I imply in … they by no means met her.”
Asked why Amanda referred to as herself “Foxy Knoxy,” Madison explains, “She bought that identify from different individuals. She did not make that up herself. She was a soccer participant. And when she ran on the sector, her teammates stated that she appeared like a fox.”
But the Italian police aren’t basing their case on a nickname. They had been taking a look at Amanda and Raffaele’s public habits after the homicide; police introduced Amanda and her boyfriend again to the crime scene the day after the homicide to see how they’d react.
Nick Pisa was there. “They each had been kind of stroking one another and petting one another. And then they had been kissing one another. And they appear to be whispering to one another.”
What some see as easy comforting was interpreted by Italian police as one thing sinister.
Why is it vital?
“The police are extra pointing to the truth that it is simply very odd and strange habits. There did not appear to be any disappointment,” Pisa says.
The subsequent day, the couple was caught on a safety digicam shopping for underwear for Amanda. “The store proprietor distinctly remembers them being fairly excited and aroused by the acquisition. And promising one another an evening of frenzied intercourse with this new G-string,” Paolo Sfriso says.
“Based in your expertise, what do you consider that?” Van Sant asks.
“Not solely is there insensitivity and inappropriateness, it might be seen as arousal. As in getting your kicks out of this,” Sfriso says.
But the police principle that Meredith was killed throughout a intercourse frenzy has an issue, based on non-public investigator Paul Ciolino. “That’s a terrific principle till the science comes rolling in, till the fingerprints present up, and so they go, ‘Oops, oops, we made a mistake.'”
A take a look at the proof
With a British lady murdered, her throat slashed, and an American lady held as a suspect, Italian investigators spared no expense, bringing within the nation’s greatest forensic groups to Perugia. Police say they’ve recovered arduous proof linking Amanda to the homicide.
“There are traces of her blood combined with Meredith’s blood within the toilet. In the home the place Meredith was murdered,” Sfriso explains.
And the boyfriend?
“We have Raffaele’s shoeprint in her blood, within the room the place she was murdered,” Sfriso says.
Police do intensive testing on a knife present in Raffaele’s kitchen drawer. Amanda’s DNA is on the deal with, no shock. But investigators are surprised when Meredith’s DNA is detected on the blade. Police assume it might be the homicide weapon.
“And from their perspective, Amanda and Raffaele staged the crime,” Sfriso says. “Patrick bodily dedicated it, perhaps with some bodily help, both from Raffaele or from each Raffaele and Amanda.”
But there’s a downside: Patrick Lumumba, the person Amanda named because the killer, had an hermetic alibi for the night time of the homicide. He was at his bar.
After an exhaustive search, police might discover no proof linking Lumumba to the homicide and in a surprising reversal launched him.
“We could not perceive why Amanda Knox would accuse her boss. We do not know why she pulled out Patrick’s identify,” says Nathan Abraham, an American and a former scholar who now works in Perugia.
Abraham says Amanda’s lie about Lumumba shocked everybody. “He has a lovely spouse and child. He’s essentially the most well-known man in Perugia, and everyone loves him … everyone from the mayor down.”
Police imagine Amanda implicated Lumumba as a part of a well-planned, calculated transfer to cover the identification of the actual killer. Within days of Lumumba’s launch, the case took one other dramatic twist.
“They had discovered a fingerprint. It did not match with Raffaele, with Amanda or with Patrick,” Pisa explains.
The fingerprint belonged to 20-year-old Rudy Guede, who was a fixture-and typically a nuisance-on the native bar scene.
A dropout, Rudy had no common job. He performed basketball on the courts close to Amanda and Meredith’s home. And he smoked dope with the boys who lived one ground under the ladies.
“We know that Rudy was fairly pleasant with the blokes downstairs,” Pisa says.
The day after the homicide, Rudy ran. He hopped a prepare out of Perugia, heading north. Two weeks later, after a European-wide manhunt, Rudy was tracked down in central Germany, arrested, and returned to Perugia.
“We have his fingerprint on the pillow. We have his DNA within the toilet. We have his admission that he was there on the time,” Pisa says.
Rudy advised police Meredith invited him over for a date and so they had intercourse. “Although his story does appear reasonably fanciful – that he was within the toilet and that he got here out and he discovered Meredith, noticed Meredith had been stabbed. And that some man was operating out of the room,” Pisa remarks.
Rudy stated he could not establish the killer. But he admitted he left a dying Meredith mendacity in a pool of blood. He stated he went house, modified his garments, and went dancing at a disco till 4 within the morning.
“48 Hours” introduced Chicago non-public detective Paul Ciolino to Italy to look into the case towards Amanda.
“She’s been getting railroaded because the day they took her into custody, since November fifth, 2007. The railroad began and it continues right this moment as we sit right here proper now,” says Ciolino, who reviewed police stories, Meredith’s post-mortem, crime scene pictures, and talked to witnesses.
He says every part factors to Rudy Guede: “We know one factor for sure in life that once you’re lifeless, the final man who was with you is normally liable for you being lifeless. And the final individual that was with Meredith, from the horse’s mouth, is Rudy.”
Ciolino does not purchase Rudy’s story that he was courting Meredith. Rudy advised police he met Meredith the night time earlier than the homicide at a Halloween celebration on the bar Merlin’s. Meredith was there, dressed as a vampire. But nobody noticed Rudy.
Did Meredith hang around in any respect with Rudy on the Halloween celebration?
“Meredith didn’t hang around with Rudy Guede. Meredith and Rudy should not contemporaries. They’re not buddies,” Ciolino says. “They did not have a relationship of any form on any stage.”
Ciolino, speaking to the proprietor of the bar, discovered that Rudy had even been banned from Merlin’s as a result of he tried to rob a bartender at knifepoint. “We know that Rudy has no seen technique of assist and is ready to pay lease, go to golf equipment, and do all types of issues,” he says.
“Why would Rudy have focused that home, of all locations, to search for cash? These are a bunch of faculty scholar,” Van Sant asks.
“Rent is due at the moment of the month. It was the first. And lease’s due. So everyone is aware of faculty college students are gathering up the lease at the moment,” Ciolino theorizes.
Police advised Ciolino Meredith took out 250 euros the day she was murdered and the cash is lacking. Rudy’s fingerprints had been discovered on her purse. “It’s actually that straightforward. There was no Raffaele. There was no Amanda, OK? Jesuit educated highschool women who’re excessive honors college students 18 months in the past do not take part in orgies and homicides. They do not do it, and if you happen to might inform me one which does, I certain prefer to see her,” Ciolino says.
Was Amanda’s confession coerced?
Ciolino needs justice for Meredith as effectively, however not on the expense of Amanda. “She’s a 20-year-old child who has been ripped out of every part that she is aware of and positioned in jail. Amanda Knox is sitting in a most safety jail in Italy questioning when she’s gonna get out,” he says.
Amanda and her boyfriend have been in jail since early November, now greater than 5 months. Yet Ciolino believes police don’t have any convincing proof that they had something to do with Meredith’s homicide.
“The police chief of Perugia appeared me within the eye and stated, ‘We have proof,'” Van Sant remarks.
“He is aware of there’s not a shred of proof placing this lady at that homicide scene,” Ciolino says.
Edgardo Giobbi is the lead investigator. He advised “48 Hours” that the case towards all three suspects is stable. The DNA discovered on the sufferer’s bra, he says, DNA which belongs to Rudy and Raffaele, proves Rudy did not act alone. And if Raffaele was concerned, so was Amanda, as a result of they each declare they had been collectively that night time.
“I do not imagine it is there. I do not imagine Raffaele’s DNA is on Meredith’s bra,” Ciolino says.
Why? Because Ciolino says proof leaked on this case has typically turned out to be incorrect. A major instance: the witness police say heard three individuals operating from the home that night time.
“Peter, excessive police officers advised you that they had a witness who heard stuff that night time, indicating that they had interviewed her and so they owned her. Now, we go interview the witness, and what occurred?” Ciolino wonders.
The witness, Nara Capezzali, stated she heard a scream within the night time, then the sound of operating, from her condominium throughout the road from the crime scene on the night time of the homicide. She advised her story in an Italian tv interview.
“I heard a giant scream, a chilling scream,” she advised an Italian reporter.
TV and tabloids had already been reporting the police principle that three individuals, together with Amanda, had been all concerned within the crime.
Asked by the reporter if she had heard three totally different actions, Nara stated, “Yes. Three various things. One went up, one went that method.”
Ciolino wished to speak to this key witness himself. He took “48 Hours”‘Â translator, Julia Alagna, to the lady’s door.
“She heard a scream and any individual run away,” the translator stated after talking with Nara.
The home windows, Nara advised the translator, had been closed on the time.
Ciolino wished to see-or hear-for himself. Nara’s upstairs neighbor let Ciolino into her condominium to search out out what he might hear.
Outside, “48 Hours” bought some native youngsters to do some operating to see if the sounds had been audible contained in the neighbor’s condominium, with the window’s closed.
The outcome: Ciolino says he heard one thing however could not inform if it was footsteps; the neighbor, Christine, says she did not hear something.
At the very least, the unscientific take a look at raises critical questions on what Nara actually heard that night time, and even she is not as sure as police have steered.
“She did not know what it … she could not inform if it was one or two or three,” Nara advised Ciolino by the translator.
Nara additionally did not know what time it was that she heard the sounds. But she may be very clear about one factor: she says she was by no means interviewed by the police.
As arduous as it’s to imagine, police solely noticed the witness on tv. “This is fascinating to me as a result of not one cop on this city has ever knocked on this lady’s door, not one time,” Ciolino says.
Ciolino says if Amanda had truly been concerned in Meredith’s homicide, police ought to have much more proof to show it. “When you or I stroll right into a room and we mess it up with blood and DNA and sweat we’ll carry an entire lot of stuff house with us. And we’ll go away much more there. But now we have an issue on this case. Because they cannot put Amanda and Raffaele in that crime scene,” Ciolino says.
“But you already know who put Amanda on the crime scene? Amanda put Amanda on the crime scene. Who indicators a press release that implicates them and their associates to homicide? Who does that? Why would Amanda signal that?” Van Sant asks.
“Let me let you know, Peter, a confused 20-year-old lady, 6,000 miles from house, and unexpectedly they’re telling her she’s a chief suspect in a homicide, that they are gonna put her in jail for the remainder of her life in an Italian jail, except you pony up child, and signal this,” Ciolino says.
That’s what the case towards Amanda boils all the way down to, says Ciolino: a police principle that shaped the premise for a coerced confession.
How does this work?
“This is actual simple, OK? ‘Amanda, you already know what occurred and I do know what occurred. And you higher signal this assertion as a result of if you happen to do not, younger girl, you are by no means gonna see your mother once more. You’re by no means gonna see your daddy once more.’ ‘Sir, it did not actually occur like that.’ ‘Bip, sure, it did occur like that, Amanda. And that is the way it occurred. You had been with Patrick. And you and him went over there and he murdered your roommate. Now, perhaps, perhaps you did not know that was gonna occur. But you actually had been there and also you helped make it occur. Now, you higher get writing or signal this or dangerous issues are gonna occur like we’re gonna cost you with the homicide.’ That’s why there is not any video. There isn’t any audio. There isn’t any impartial celebration. There’s Amanda and there is the cops. That’s it. And who’s gonna imagine Amanda?” Ciolino says.
Amanda’s signed assertion helped type the spine of the unique police principle of the crime: that Amanda and Raffaele assisted Patrick Lumumba when he killed Meredith.
“And that is a terrific principle till the science comes rolling in, till the fingerprints present up,” Ciolino says.
When Lumumba proved he had an alibi, and police matched DNA to Rudy Guede, the unique principle did not work anymore.
“But now now we have one other downside, as a result of Amanda did not know him. And Raffaele do not know him,” Ciolino explains.
Ciolino discovered that police don’t have any telephone data linking Amanda and Raffaele to Rudy. “There’s no connection. So, now we have a giant downside. This is all a police generated fairy story,” Ciolino says.
The police have been revising that “fairy story,” says Ciolino, however they appear decided to not let Amanda reside fortunately ever after. “They’ve put a lot into Amanda, they’ve gotta convict her now or they appear to be fools. In their minds they appear to be fools,” he says.
In search of justice
Every Tuesday and Saturday morning, members of the family are allowed a quick go to with Amanda at a jail simply exterior Perugia the place she has been held since final November.
On a Tuesday in February, Curt joined his ex-wife in Italy; “48 Hours” introduced Curt to Europe with a purpose to interview each mother and father collectively.
Asked what Amanda’s life is like proper now in jail, Curt says, “Well, she is set free of her cell for one hour a day. She mainly spends an hour a day, you already know, attempting to train within the yard.”
Since Amanda’s arrest her mother and father take turns staying in Italy, away from Seattle for weeks at a time. “It’s plenty of ready, it is simply plenty of ready … it is arduous,” Edda says.
During her months in jail Amanda has saved a diary. In it she wrote concerning the in a single day interrogation that led to her arrest and imprisonment.
“She stated, ‘The statements had been made below the pressures of stress, shock and excessive exhaustion. Not solely was I advised I might be arrested and put in jail for 30 years, however I used to be additionally hit within the head after I did not bear in mind a reality appropriately.’ Is that true?” Van Sant asks.
“She wrote that and we imagine that every part that she has stated is true,” Edda says.
But the lead investigator says not true – that nobody ever hit Amanda. He expects all three suspects will likely be charged and tried for homicide.
Police say Raffaele’s bloody shoeprint will likely be vital proof at trial. But protection attorneys and Ciolino say it is not conclusive. “Now, specialists have checked out that footprint and it is not Raffaele’s. They’ve bought Raffaele’s sneakers, there is not any blood on ’em,” Ciolino says.
“They have combined blood, Amanda and Meredith’s blood within the toilet,” Van Sant remarks.
“They have Amanda’s blood in a rest room that they shared generally. Meredith is killed within the bed room, not within the toilet,” Ciolino says.
“There is a report {that a} knife has been recovered at Raffaele’s home that has Amanda’s DNA on the deal with and reportedly, Meredith DNA on the blade, seems like a homicide weapon, does not it?” Van Sant asks.
“No one has decided that is the homicide weapon. Not the federal government or the protection. Nobody is aware of,” Ciolino says.
Police agree it will not be the homicide weapon however assume it could have been used in a roundabout way in the course of the crime. And the motive? Police have modified their principle: they now imagine Meredith was murdered by Rudy, Amanda and Raffaele throughout a theft, not an orgy.
“There’s by no means been a motive. They might by no means clarify a motive on this case. There isn’t any motive,” Ciolino says.
“What would possibly occur now that would hurt Amanda Knox’s possibilities in a trial?” Van Sant asks.
“There’s quite a few threats. She’s bought two defendants, each of whom have stated she did not do something incorrect. The longer this factor goes on, the longer everyone sits in jail, any individual’s gonna work out in the end: my greatest likelihood escaping this nonsense is to hold Amanda out to dry,” Ciolino says.
And that is precisely what occurred simply two weeks in the past: after months of silence, Rudy requested to talk to the prosecutor. Before, Rudy had stated he couldn’t establish Meredith’s killer. Now he says he noticed Raffaele with a knife within the condominium, and that Amanda was there, too.
Amanda’s mother and father are frightened. They concern their daughter could quickly be on path for homicide in Italy. “But, now we have to imagine within the system. It’s the one alternative that now we have,” Curt says.
“Because the opposite choice is to imagine that, you already know, she’s gonna be in jail for one thing that she did not do. And that is simply unimaginable,” Edda provides.
Meredith Kercher’s was buried by her household in southeast England in December. Amanda’s mother and father sympathize with Meredith’s household and pray that their daughter does not turn into one other harmless sufferer on this tragedy.
“Are there phrases to explain what that is like for a mother or father?” Van Sant asks.
“I do not know that I might. It’s actually intestine wrenching. It’s a bodily, virtually sick response to the entire state of affairs … virtually consistently,” Edda explains.
“It’s nothing you ever want, even in your enemies,” Curt says.
Paul Ciolino says he is fearful about Amanda and fearful that the Italian justice system is out to get her.
“And if you happen to had the facility to do, to behave proper now, what would you do?” Van Sant asks.
“I might hop in my automotive and I’d go to that jail and I’d get them two youngsters out of there, and I’d take them house to their mother and father,” Ciolino says. “That’s what I might do. And that is what ought to be completed. And till that is completed, this case is gonna be a catastrophe.”
In October 2008, Rudy Guede was convicted of the homicide of Meredith Kercher. He was launched in 2021 after serving 13 years. Â
In December 2009, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito had been convicted of homicide. They had been launched in 2011 after an appeals courtroom overturned the conviction. Knox and Sollecito spent almost 4 years behind bars. Â
The pair had been exonerated by the Italian Supreme Court in 2015.
