Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - "Foxy Knoxy" Amanda Knox 6 years free after roomies brutal murder

Episode Date: October 4, 2017

Amanda Knox declared in a tweet this week: "6 Years Free!" It was on October 3, 2011, that an Italian court overturned the Seatlle woman's murder conviction in the death of her roommate Meredith Kercher. Knox is now 30 and living in Seattle. Nancy Grace revisits the controversial case in this episode with attorney Anne Bremner, a spokesman for the Knox family, and Seattle reporter Linda Byron, who closely covered Amanda's story since the beginning. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. February 2004, Maura Murray empties her bank account, drives four hours from school, crashes her car, and vanishes. Join the search as an investigative reporter uncovers new evidence, interrogates new witnesses, traces down new leads in this riveting new investigative series, The Disappearance of Maura Murray, Saturdays, 7, 6 Central and 9, 8 Central on Oxygen, the new network for crime. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, channel 132. In an ancient Italian hilltop, the life of a young foreign exchange student ends in violence. And the life of another is forever linked to the crime. Amanda Knox would be convicted.

I was afraid of going insane. She contemplated suicide. If I'm going to die in prison no matter what, do I want that to be the one thing that I have that's on my terms? Knox Amanda is free. Amanda's name is finally clear. Or is it? The UW student is on trial again. I did not believe that I would be going through this again.

Did you kill Meredith? No. I did not kill Meredith. No. I wish that question didn't have to be asked. A 21-year-old British student, Meredith Kircher, found brutally murdered in her apartment. What went wrong? Still so many unsettling questions. It's all about Amanda Knox, the U.S. student who was studying abroad, who was roped into a murder charge. Many people still believing that Amanda Knox took part in

some way in the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kircher. She says, no way. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. What is the truth? Joining me, Ann Bremner, high-profile lawyer out of Seattle that has had many, many dealings with Amanda Knox's family. Also with me from KING-TV, investigative reporter Linda Byron, who interviewed Amanda Knox, also from LA, Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, and of course, Alan Duke, the Duke joining me out of LA. It is a case that never really seemed to be put to rest. Why? Why do so many people still believe Amanda Knox brutally murdered her young roommate, Meredith Kircher. Let's go through the facts as we know them about the scene of the crime and the timeline of when Meredith was murdered. A lot of people don't even know Meredith Kircher's name, but they do know Amanda Knox's name. Let's start at the beginning. Linda Byron, KING-TV. Tell me about the day, the evening, that Meredith Kircher was murdered.

Well, we know that Meredith Kircher had gone to a Halloween party. We know that Amanda and Raffaele said that they were in their apartment that night and that they were hanging out. She was supposed to work and got a text that she didn't need to work. So they decided they were going to spend the evening. Okay, hold on, hold on. We're talking about the U.S. student, Amanda Knox, and her boyfriend, Rafael Solcito. They were there in the apartment that Amanda shared with Meredith. Is that right?

No, they were in his apartment. I mean, this is the hardest. His apartment. Correct. I thought you said her apartment. Okay. Amanda and Raffaele said that they spent the evening in his apartment and that they didn't really go out. They watched a movie on the computer. They made dinner. She was supposed to work and she did not have to go in. She got a text from her boss. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I thought she told cops they smoked weed and she had sex. Yes, she did. So let me back up.

So Amanda was supposed to go to work at the bar that she worked at with Patrick Lumumba. She got a text saying, it's slow. You don't have to come in. She texted back. Okay, see you later. She was excited. She told Raffaele Selecito, her boyfriend, I don't have to come in. She texted back, okay, see you later. She was excited. She told Raffaele Selecito, her boyfriend, I don't have to go to work. They said they spent the evening in his

apartment. They smoked some marijuana. They had sex. They had dinner. They watched a movie. And the next day, she goes back to her apartment that she shared with the British roommates and an Italian woman. When you say the British woman, you're talking about Meredith Kircher, the 21-year-old? That's right. That's right. Yes. So Meredith Kircher had gone to a Halloween party, had come home, and was alone. Amanda Knox came in after spending the evening with her boyfriend, and she took a shower. She noticed some blood in the

bathroom. She did not, um, immediately think that something terrible was wrong. She said, she told me that she saw this blood, but it was a little bit, she thought someone might've cut themselves. Um, and she went back to Raffaele and And they had a discussion, and she told him she thought things were strange. Okay, wait a minute. So she sees blood, and didn't she try Meredith's room and the door was locked from the inside? That happened after she came back with Raffaele Selecito. She left, they came back, they tried the door, the door was locked.

I think that's when they really truly became suspicious. Now, I'm basing this, of course, on all of what I heard in the courtroom and the court transcripts. I think that's when they really truly became suspicious. Now I'm basing this of course, on all of what I heard in the courtroom and the court transcripts and all. So she sees blood and the door to Meredith's room is locked on the inside. And I believe they call Meredith or she calls Meredith and she won't answer her cell phone, which is highly unusual. Yes. So we're talking about blood in the bathroom. How much blood was in the bathroom? Not a large amount, a small amount in the sink.

There was a small amount on the rug. And so, yes, most people would say, wow, that's really suspicious. Now, she hadn't tried Meredith's door yet. She left, went back to Raffaele's. They came back. They tried the door. And about that time, the postal police were showing up. And the postal police showed up because Meredith's cell phones had been found. And they're the ones who investigate. Her phones had been tossed aside in kind of a wooded area not far from the apartment. That's when they come in, kick the door down, and Meredith is under a duvet cover, and it's a bloody mess in the room, and it's obvious that a terrible murder has occurred.

Wow. Were there any other signs outside of Meredith's room besides a fair amount of blood in the bathroom that Amanda Knox saw. Was there anything else askew or amiss? The front door was askew when Amanda came home, which should have raised suspicion. But that door sometimes apparently didn't shut well. That door was askew. And there was also some feces in the toilet. And that seemed odd because the girls were pretty good about making sure that they would flush the toilet. So later put together, all of those things certainly look suspicious. Once that door was kicked in, it was obvious that Meredith had

been murdered. Her foot was sticking out from under the duvet. And the police investigation, of course, begins at that point. Ann Bremner, joining me, high profile lawyer out of Seattle and lawyer for Friends of Amanda Knox. Ann, thank you so much for being with us along with Linda and Dr. Bethany Marshall. You know, this is one of the many reasons that people to this day believe Amanda Knox was somehow involved in Meredith's murder. Number one, she and the boyfriend, Rafael Asosito, couldn't seem to get their stories straight at the beginning. Their stories differed over and over and over. The coming home to find the blood, the cell phone not answering, the door locked, the front door askew,

and not calling police. That disturbed people. The day after her roommate is raped and brutally, brutally stabbed dead, she is seen on closed circuit TV, you know, video surveillance in a store. I think it was called Bubbles, laughing and snuggling and kissing Solcito, buying lingerie, buying underwear. And at the police station, she was laughing and joking, I believe with the boyfriend at the police station. This is after her roommate has been murdered and then of course and there's the it's been repeated over and over where she tells police that she recalls hearing Meredith screaming for her life but she just put her hands over her ears you know it brings back Amber and you and I lived through this together when OJ Simpson said he had a dream that he killed Nicole you know I've never

dreamed that I killed anybody yet anyway um but I'm not saying it couldn't happen but I've never dreamed that I've never thought or sat around and thought of the perfect way to die unless I'm writing a murder mystery but she definitely said that she dreamed or she recalls, she couldn't make sure if she was in a fugue state or she was having a dream, that she recalls hearing Meredith screaming for her life in the next room and she just put her hands over her ears. See, a lot of people have a problem with that, Ann. That was, of course, an interrogation in a different language.

She didn't speak Italian back then, although she testified in Italian far, far later. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. She lived in Italy, and she did speak Italian, and she texted in Italian. She worked in an Italian bar. So she did speak Italian. It's a quantum leap to go from rudimentary Italian to, you know, basically talking about an alleged homicide of an ear of the primary suspect. But the fact is what she said primary suspect but now and you know how much i respect you is you know you're a very renowned legal expert like but and please please but i'm not saying i'm jumping on the bandwagon but you can't live in italy with an italian boyfriend and work in a bar and you've been living there for a period of time and say you don't know

italian the one time you tell police yeah i heard my roommate screaming for her life and I put my hands over my ears that's the one time you don't know what you're saying yeah Nancy she knew her boyfriend for a week I just spent time with him at a conference in Europe but the thing is okay she was she was she a week but she she had said they said imagine imagine if you were there what would you have done then she says if i was like a theoretical i would have covered my ears with screams the second part of it is she was interrogated for a long period of time in fact part of it was thrown out because she didn't have a lawyer and she didn't have a certified interpreter you know and then also she said struck her during the

interrogation and then she's maintained that all along so that and all the other issues raised about making faces you know or acting quirky that's not probable cause to believe someone committed a homicide. And finally, on the lingerie, her house was a crime scene. She wasn't buying the lingerie like the tabloid said. She was just getting items. And finally, those pictures. It was underwear. You call it undies.

You call it lingerie. Whatever you want to say. She didn't have it. Right. Okay. You can call it whatever you want to call it, but it doesn't implicate her in a homicide. Her house was a crime scene, so she had to go out to Victoria's Secret to buy underwear. It wasn't Victoria's Secret.

It was bubbles. It was bubbles. OK, but the thing is, Nancy, she also went out for a pee. OK, I'm just going to throw something out here. They called that probable cause. I'm going to throw something out here. They called that probable cause. But when they were kissing out front of the house, the next frame shows them looking despondent, Raph and Amanda. So, you know, all the things that are ticked off saying the shows, Liz saying that she did this, are also completely consistent with this.

I think Linda Byron was jumping in. Jump in, Linda. If you look at the, if you look at the, yeah, I want to jump in on this, this statement you made that she says that she was in the apartment and she heard her roommate screaming for her life, et cetera, because what really happened there was after hours and hours and hours of this interrogation, she signed a confession at 1.45 in the morning and then another one at 5.45 in the morning. But to call them confessions is really not very accurate. If you look at what she said, especially at 545, by the way, this was thrown out by the Supreme Court as being a core statement. She said, I do not remember anything. I am very confused. I do not remember if Meredith was screaming.

At a certain point, I heard Meredith screaming. I plugged my ears. I imagined, I imagined what could have happened. Could you say that again, Linda? Linda Byron, who's had an in-depth interview with Amanda Knox, could you repeat that again for me, exactly what she said? This is the statement from 545 in the morning, after she has been deprived of food and water, after she's been screamed at by people who come one after another into the room, and after she says, she was told, imagine what might have happened, what could have happened. She says, I cannot remember repeatedly through this statement. She says, at a certain point, I heard Meredith screaming. And

as I was scared, I plugged up my ears. I am very confused. I do not remember if Meredith was screaming and if I heard that because I was upset. I imagined what could have happened. That to me is not a decisive, that is not a decisive confession. Well, okay, first of all, you said confession. I said statement. And here is Linda Byron as she is interviewing Amanda Knox. Listen.

Meredith's family is still mourning her death and to this day believe Amanda was involved. We asked her about that. Did you kill Meredith? No. I did not kill Meredith. I wish that question didn't have to be asked. In her recently published memoir, She looks even younger than I remember her....Knox wrote that she felt close to Meredith. The first night I went there, she took me out to pizza with all of her friends.

She was very kind and very smart, and she didn't quite know yet what she wanted to do with her life. They confided in each other. She said she either wanted to be a journalist like her dad, or she wanted to maybe go into like international relations. She was still figuring herself out, and in the same way, I felt the same way. Like, I was there also to figure myself out. I thought, oh, I'll be an interpreter, and I'll be a world traveler, and it'll be awesome.

Those dreams were crushed when Meredith was murdered and Amanda named as her killer. I was arrested before I was even able to really come to terms with the fact that she was dead. My lawyer showed me her autopsy photos in prison in preparation for what I was going to have to go through in court, I was devastated and I was unprepared even then. Months and months and months after my even imprisonment, after all of those times where they talk about knives and they talk about lovers and they talk about Rudy Gaudet and they're talking about all of it and this case is happening and yet you still are not even coming to terms with it then. I actually had a friend who was murdered and I've had to defend myself against allegations

of being responsible for that instead of being able to come to terms with that and to grieve and to find closure. And I think about her most of all when I think about her family. I've never really had the chance to ever meet her family and the conditions of their coming into contact with me ever were always through the courtroom. I want to see Meredith's grave. I want to be there and I want to actually be able to say goodbye to her. To psychoanalyst Dr. Bethany Marshall, for her to say, I think this is what causes a lot of people to still believe Amanda Knox was in the apartment when her roommate was murdered. Because to say, I can't remember, and then I heard Meredith screaming, I'm confused, I'm confused, I imagined what could have happened in there.

She's not saying I imagined or I dreamed I heard her scream. She said, I heard Meredith screaming. Well, but wasn't this in Italian? So that's a very nuanced communication. I imagined I heard her screaming rather than I heard her screaming or I imagined what it would have been like if she was screaming. If she did not speak fluent Italian she said no I just had Linda Byron say it twice in a row she said I'm confused I'm confused I heard Meredith screaming I imagined what was happening well if she was in her boyfriend's apartment which was a five-minute walk away she could not have heard her screaming if she was in her boyfriend's apartment, which was a five-minute walk away, she could not have heard her screaming. If she was in the house, obviously, she would have heard

her screaming. My understanding is that she was in the boyfriend's house, spent the night, they smoked a joint, she had sex, they watched a movie, she walked home the next morning. She gives a conflicting statement to the police, But what I know is that when somebody has experienced a horrible trauma, and I think witnessing a scene like this would qualify as a trauma, they can say things that are conflicting. I do believe that can happen. No, that's interesting, Bethany, because I've never heard anybody that sees a murder scene suddenly say, I heard them screaming. I've never seen that happen. If you come upon a murder scene and then go out and buy lingerie. No, you see that I'm like you, I don't know what happened, but I can tell you that those

facts are very troubling. And Ann Bremner, who's not just a friend, who is a colleague, has worked with Amanda's family and is lawyer related to a friend of Amanda Knox. And that's why I have her here today. And I mean, I think that looks bad. Now, I know the status of the case. The Italian High Court has exonerated her. But I'm telling you, those facts

are very troubling, Anne. Nobody can say those facts are not troubling. You know, the fact is they asked her to imagine what happened, and that's why she said she imagined it. This was after browbeating her in a foreign language, as we've already talked about, and without an interpreter. And of course, this is thrown out. She also recanted what she

had to say in writing. Wait, are you saying they browbeat her because they didn't give her anything to eat? I mean, it's one o'clock in the morning. Why would they? Let's get down to what this case was really about, Nancy, and that was there were no forensics. They had two items they said that connected her to the crime. Those were found to be inadmissible, compromised, and contaminated by independent experts appointed by a judge. The highest court in Italy didn't just say she was not guilty. They said she was exonerated, that this was a travesty, that she'd been through this. So we can go back and we can look at what

she said when they asked her to imagine, you know, what would have happened had she been there. And she complies. And she says that. And she says she's confused. You know, it's a whole lot of nothing in this case, but it's a whole lot of what led her to serve four years in prison for a crime she didn't commit. And that's the bottom line. And finally, on Cora's confessions, we know they happen all over the place. I want to pause very quickly and thank our partner as we continue to argue about Amanda Knox. Again, the Italian high court has exonerated her, and she's here in the U.S. In fact, she just signed a $3.8 million book deal. She is here.

I want to thank our partner, and that partner is LegalZoom. When you run your own business, you know time equals money. That's not just an old saying. It's true. So why waste your valuable time dealing with issues LegalZoom can help with? You may already know over 2 million people have used LegalZoom to start their businesses, but LegalZoom services don't end there. Running a business comes with taxes, contracts, hiring employees, basically a lot of fine print. And that is why LegalZoom

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Linda Byron, investigative reporter. Bethany Marshall, excuse me, Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, joining me out of L.A., and Alan Duke, the Duke, joining me out of L.A. as well. Take a listen to what the Italian prosecutor says. The principal evidence was mixed blood traces from which were extracted mixed DNA of Amanda and Meredith. The only explanation for that mix is that Amanda was bleeding and touched objects that were covered in Meredith's blood. There's no other explanation. To Linda Byron, investigative reporter. Linda, you disagree. You have had a chance to

meet and interview in depth with Amanda Knox. You disagree with a prosecutor. Explain to me your position. What I can tell you from covering these trials and sitting in the courtroom and listening to the prosecution and the defense is that the prosecution had no solid evidence of any ever presented. And here's one of the things that really bothered me. The evolving motive. Initially, the prosecutor saying that this was some kind of satanic rite because Raffaele Selecito had been interested in these kind of dark comics in which vampires are hunted

and killed, and they're female vampires, and Meredith had dressed as a vampire for the Halloween party that night. Later, the motive evolves again. Now it's a drug-fueled sex game. No evidence put forward for that either. When that was shown,

or when that was countered so strongly in the courtroom... Okay, pause. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I need to understand something. Was Meredith Kircher clothed, unclothed, or partially clothed when her body was found? She was partially clothed. Okay, so she's partially clothed. She had been raped, and she was covered in blood. I could kind of see where prosecutors got the idea. Some sort of sex attack did happen. Somebody was convicted of rape and murder. And that would be

the guy from the ivory coast. Yes, an attack, but a sex game. A sex game that Meredith refused to participate. The theory was this. That Amanda and her boyfriend wanted to do something fun and different and exciting and extreme. And they decided

that they wanted to have this sexual tryst with Meredith Kircher. And when Meredith refused to participate, they slit her throat and killed her. What you're talking about is a motive we see all the time for murder, and that is rape often leads to murder because they want to cover up the crime. The prosecutor called this a drug-fueled sex game. Then when that was countered in court, it became, that theory sort of drifted away and it became Meredith was such a wonderful, sweet, innocent girl that Amanda hated her. And this was about, this was about hate. And Amanda had bad bathroom habits and she was tired of her roommates bothering her about those kinds of things. And then it was about money.

You know, maybe a man just killed Meredith for money. This is what bothered me is the prosecution did not find a motive, stick with the motive. It was an evolving motive every time something didn't fit. In fact, at one point, the knife, they had the knife, the murder knife, allegedly, didn't fit the stab wound. So the prosecutor said there were two knives. That is not the way I have seen good, solid trials produce evidence that lead to conviction. Well, I can say this, Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, that motives evolve. So the fact that the prosecution, I mean, the satanic cult thing sounds kind of outlandish to me. I don't believe I would have mentioned that.

But, I mean, you find out during an investigation, during a trial, you find out evolving motives. Luckily, in the United States, you don't have to show a motive to a jury. You have to prove who did it and, you know, the date, essentially, the general date. You have to show jurisdiction and you have to show the murder and who did it. Bam. We are not expected to crawl into the mind of a killer and figure out what they were thinking. But juries like to hear motives. Motives evolve.

You may think a murder is because of one thing, and then the more you investigate, you find out something else. So a changing motive doesn't concern me. What does concern me is that another guy, I believe, was unrelated to Amanda Knox, and that would be the Rudy Gaudet from the Ivory Coast who was found guilty of sex assault and murder of Meredith Kircher. Now, does that— And it was his DNA all over the and murder of Meredith Kircher. Now, does that... And it was his DNA all over the room and all over the victim. That is a concern to me.

That is a hard fact to me that suggests Amanda Knox is not guilty. But I still have her claiming, I put my hands over my ears, I heard her screaming in the next room. That makes me think that she was there at the time. Okay, that's where I'm coming from. I've never, ever thought Amanda Knox took a knife and stabbed Meredith Kircher. But because of her own statements, I can't get away from the fact that she says she hears her screaming. Now, can that be explained away?

Maybe. But this guy has been found guilty. Now, his sentence has been reduced to just 16 years for rape and murder. I bet Meredith Kircher's family is turning cartwheels right now, Bethany Marshall. Right. 16 years. Can you imagine it? And his DNA was at the scene. And Amanda Knox and her boyfriend's DNA was not there. And, you know, from a scientific perspective, you can't, they couldn't go in and clean up their own DNA and just leave his DNA there. Right. So obviously they weren't in the room. But in terms of all these stories that were being told, the sex story was the one that stuck.

That's the one I remember at the time, the idea that Amanda and her boyfriend were trying to ramp up their sexual experience. So they wanted to turn Meredith into a sex slave and then she resisted. So they had to slit her throat. That was the story that everyone was fascinated by. I think that some of the boyfriend's solicito's DNA was found on Meredith's bra strap, but that was 46 days later. So that was an interesting twist, too. I agree with you, Nancy. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What about her bra strap?

Meredith Kirscher's bra strap? I remember at the time, and I was just reading about this this morning, that Amanda Knox's boyfriend, her new boyfriend, Salicito, is that how you pronounce his name? That the boyfriend's DNA was found on Meredith's bra strap, on a clasp on a bra strap. But this was 46 days after the crime. And this was quite incriminating as well. But that was that is that Linda Byron was her DNA found on Kircher's bra strap. There was a trace amount of DNA that was, is that Linda Byron, was her DNA found on Kircher's bra strap? There was a trace amount of DNA that was attributed to Raffaele Selecito. What the scientific experts from Rome said when they were brought in at the second trial to analyze all of this evidence, they said that that was almost certainly from contamination.

If you look at the video, the crime scene, if you look at the criminal as they're going through and they're processing the crime scene, 46 days after they've been in and out of that room over and over and in and out of the house, they picked up this little piece of a bra clasp and they hand it all around. They pass it all around and they're all looking at it. This was found to be terribly sloppy. Do you know that, Linda? Do you know it was handed around? Yeah, you can see it on the video and it was brought up in court.

I've got the video. It was brought up in court. Yes, that you see it being handed around. That's a fact. The second appellate court stated that the victim, the murder victim, Meredith Kircher's bra clasp that had been cut from her body had Solicito's DNA on the tiny metal clasp of the bra. This is Amanda Knox's then-boyfriend.

The biological DNA on the bra clasp that Meredith Kircher was wearing belonged to Raffaele Solicito. If he had been in that room, if he had been handling her clothing, if he had ripped that bra clasp from her body, his DNA would have been all over the room. This is what bothered me when I covered this trial was I kept looking for what we normally see in these kinds of cases, which is DNA evidence. And if he had been inside that room and there had been this struggle for this drug-fueled sex game, the prosecutor claimed that Amanda Knox is the one that slit her throat, that she was being held back by Raffaele Celeste Chateau, and that Rudy Gaudet was sexually assaulting her.

All of them should have had DNA all over that room. The only DNA found was Rudy Gaudet, and it was found in the vaginal swab. It was found in the handprint on the pillow. It was found on the blood on the sweatshirt worn by the victim. And his previous behavior was highly suspicious of being one to enter apartments to rob, equipped with knives. All of this is in Judge Hellman's report. Judge Hellman was the judge's second trial that exonerated Amanda Knox. To me, that is a more simple and more obvious scenario as well, because I'm still looking

for the connection. I mean, to me, Amanda Knox's words are damning, but I don't, I still don't have a connection between Amanda Knox, boyfriend Solicito, and Rudy Gaudet, the guy from the Ivory Coast, whose DNA was at the scene. Did they work together? Did they know each other before? Any connection at all? If I can connect the three of them, then that would be a leg to stand on. But were they connected, Linda? Was anybody connected to Rudy Gaudet? Rudy Gaudet had been known to play basketball in the basketball court near where the girls lived in this apartment in the house.

And below their floor, so this was a two-story, kind of almost like a duplex type thing, where a number of young men lived there. Rudy Gaudet was known to have come to their apartment, to their part of the home, and spend time with them. So he had a very peripheral connection to that house. Wait, you're saying Gaudet spent time with who? The boys that lived beneath the girls. This is a house that has two stories, and like many houses in Italy and also here,

you may rent out one floor to one group of roommates, and you may rent out another floor to another group of roommates. So below the four rooms where these college, where Meredith and Amanda and the two other women lived, there was an apartment that was occupied by some young men who were known to have an acquaintance with Rudy Gadeck. Gotcha. But there was no common entrance between the two places. And with me is Seattle lawyer Ann Bremner, who is related to friends of Amanda Knox, that group.

Ann, was there any connection between who we know is there because of DNA in her vagina? And that would be Rudy Gaudet. Is there any connection between him and the boyfriend, Rafael Esolicito? No. And, you know, he also confessed on Skype, Rudy Gaudet, and he fled. And we know that evidence of flight is evidence of guilt, Nancy. And Linda also enumerated the other things that indicate his guilt. You know, he's all over that room.

And he had a fast-track trial. That's like a slow guilty plea in the United States. He was tried together with the other defendants in their pretrial hearing on probable cause. That's why he got a better sentence. Better? Man, you're not kidding. 16 years. He can already leave jail, I think, for work furloughs.

I mean, really? Guys, take a listen to more of what that prosecutor said. The erotic game was always part of the case. I think that night, Amanda wanted to make Meredith pay for judging her, which she found offensive. I'm all for looking at hard evidence. And again, I said I couldn't get away from Amanda Knox stating that she could hear Meredith screaming and put her hands over her ears, which means she had to be in the home at the time. All right. Now, how can I reconcile that with this crazy scheme that this motive, which they didn't need anyway, but they blurted it out that Amanda Knox murdered Meredith Kircher because Meredith

Kircher judged her lifestyle. That doesn't make sense to me. What I would need to really believe this, to believe the prosecution's case, what I would really need is a connection between Amanda Knox or her boyfriend, her lover, Raffaele Solicito, with the rapist. And that would be Rudy Gaudet. I know he did it because his DNA is on and in her body and all over the room. I think that prosecutors had reason to believe Amanda and her boyfriend may have been involved, but I don't see a connection right now to G'day that will hold up in court. What is happening now with Amanda Knox? I know that she was the focus of a very popular documentary.

I know that she says, or her supporters have said, she's returning to Italy to rid herself of the trauma of the false imprisonment and that Meredith Kircher's family says, please don't. Please, you're the only one that has profited of Meredith's brutal murder, our daughter, our sister. Please don't come back. Just, you know, deal with your trauma in your own way. That's what they're saying. I don't know why they would say that if they believe she was innocent. I also know she just did almost a $4 million book deal. So where does her life stand today, Ann Bremner? Yeah, she's doing well. She's very low-key. I've spent some time with her even at her

house and she seems to have her feet on the ground i just think it's you know one step at a time um she doesn't seek out the limelight but people don't bug her and the press here in writing said they wouldn't bug her when she has not to be contacted so i think that's good. But she's got four cats, orange cats. Yeah, just four cats. And she did go to Europe. She didn't go to Italy, but she did go to Europe recently with her boyfriend. And he's a great guy. I worked with his mom in the court system.

So I think that those are all good things, you know, that she seems to be settling down in a good way. What happened to the charge that she blamed an innocent person, another person? Well, that was still out there. Belinda can talk more about that because I wasn't in court for that part of it. But Amanda had a book deal years ago, Nancy, and that money's gone to pay for lawyers. I mean, she had lawyers for nearly a decade, including here in the United States, because there's a potential extradition. There's a Netflix piece that she participated in, but she was not compensated for. And then also, you know, she's been very active in innocence projects around the country. You know, I've attended a number of those with her. You know, she settled down with a great guy,

his name is Chris Robinson. He's a writer. He's from Hunter College. He was a professor there. She writes for the West Seattle Herald. They supported her. She has a life in arts column, and she's trying to live a normal life. You know, she seems, you know, of course, anyone would have PTSD from this. Anybody would be completely traumatized from being internationally vilified, you know, for such a long time. But she's back in Seattle and she's living a quiet life. You know, I just can't get my mind around Linda Byron, investigative reporter. They claim that this girl

was in some sex game that went wrong, and so she ended up murdering her roommate. I mean, a lot of roommates don't get along. I get it, but... That is crazy. That's crazy. I mean, if the prosecution had hoped for a conviction, that was shooting yourself in the foot

throwing that out. That's a motive that they just didn't buy. The jury just did not buy that motive. And there was very little presented in court that would indicate that they had a bad relationship. Well, wait a minute. Somebody bought it because somebody bought it somewhere and she was convicted. It was convicted the first time. That is true. She was.

And then she was exonerated. And then that was thrown out. And then she was essentially reconvicted by the Florence Court. But in the end, if you read through all of the documents of all of the courts, including the Supreme Court, that motive was dismissed as being unsupported. The Italian Supreme Court. I want to ask you, though, you said that Amanda Knox has profited from this. And my understanding... I said that Meredith Kircher's family said Amanda Knox is the only one that has profited from Meredith's murder, which they did.

Okay, point taken. And that is that the money went, as far as I understand it, to pay for her lawyers and to satisfy the mortgages that her parents and her grandmother took out on their homes to pay for her legal bills and to be in Italy. Because the family always made sure someone was there to visit her in prison once a week when she got a prison visit. So they rented an apartment. This was a highly expensive defense for them. I think they threw everything they could at it, and who wouldn't do that as a parent to have your child in a foreign prison for a crime that you do not believe she committed? And I think we do have to look at, in the end,

the Italian Supreme Court did not just say innocent in that, excuse me, they didn't just say not guilty. In other words, there's a distinction in Italy between you did not prove the crime was committed and exoneration, innocent. They said she was exonerated completely. And I think we have to have some faith in the Italian justice system's ultimate processing of this crime, or this trial, even though it took years and years and years, certainly didn't go about the way we would expect to see it. But in all that time and all those trials and all that testimony, I never heard or saw a single piece of solid, convincing evidence that showed Amanda Knox was in that room or committed that crime.

Well, I have absolutely no faith in the Italian court system because, and I'm not saying they got it wrong, because I never saw the connection between the boyfriend, Solicito, and Amanda Knox and the rapist who, I mean, you can't tell me he raped her and then somebody else just happened to walk in within the next hour and murder her. Okay. He murdered her. And I can't see a connection between the three of them, but I don't have any faith in the Italian system. And I'll tell you why, because she's tried, she's convicted. It was held on appeal. Then it was reversed on appeal. And then what they retried her on appeal? What?

They decided to re-look at the evidence? How do you reconvict someone on appeal without another trial? Well, Nancy, they had the first trial, of course, was a conviction in 2009, I think it was. But they have what's called trial de novo, really, in Italy. So the second trial was the second trial. Slow it down. Slow it down, Nancy. They have what?

In Italy, on appeal, it's called a trial de novo, which, as you know, means a new trial, a trial anew. So they presented evidence on appeal. And that's where the experts were appointed, on appeal in the trial de novo, by the judge. And that's where the experts said that the evidence was compromised. Yes, yes. But then after that, Nancy. Was she there? Yes, yes. But then after that, was she there? Yes. Yes. But then for the trial, DeNova, the new trial for the new trial, that preclusion. And this was really triple jeopardy in my mind. again in absentia and convicted and then the court the supreme court the highest court cc said she was completely exonerated not just innocent not just not guilty but completely guys i heard you the first you know maybe 10 times you said exonerated i get it she was exonerated and i'm

looking at all the sides and i appreciate it when other people try to have an open mind. Okay. And to pretend there is not evidence that appears to be damning, that's disingenuous to me. So I'm looking at all the evidence that I know, and there is evidence that looks bad for her to me. But again, when I look at the hard evidence, Bethany Marshall, I just don't see that connection with the rapist. I don't see that. Well, I agree with you. The science does not back up that Meredith and I'm sorry, Amanda and her boyfriend were in the room with Meredith. Right. But the behavioral evidence does not look good at all. The fact that she said, I heard her screaming, you kept asking me about that. And I've been thinking about it. And the only possibility I can think of was that she didn't spend the night with her boyfriend. She

went back to her apartment, heard her roommate screaming, ignored it, and then went back to her boyfriend's apartment again. The only thing I can think of. And then the video we've seen of her kissing her boyfriend the next morning, the shopping for lingerie at Bubbles, it can only be, you know, one of two things. One is that she was experiencing something that we call reaction formation. That's when you turn an underlying feeling into its opposite. So a feeling of grief, shock, loss. Bethany, you know I feel very close to you.

I think you're awesome. But when you have to just start doing backflips to explain something away, that doesn't work with me. All right. Now, I know what it is like to have someone very dear to you murdered and going out and buying lingerie the next morning, to me, does not indicate that you're the least bit concerned. And Ann Bremner, again, I respect you. You're known all over the world.

But to tell me, well, her apartment was a crime scene. She had to, what, go buy a thong? No, not buying that either. So I don't know what it means. It may mean nothing. But I do know this. Let me throw this to Dr. Bethany. And again, none of that a murder makes, period.

The fact that Meredith Kircher's family, according to DailyMail.com, protests, does not want her, Amanda Knox, to come back to Italy. And they're very firm about it. And they continue to say she's the only one that profited from Meredith's death. Now, Meredith's murder. Now, what does that mean to you? Because in all the years I prosecuted homicides, I can only count a handful of times the victim's family did not support the prosecution. Typically, it was when they were related, like, you know,

domestic homicide, and the children did not want their dad prosecuted. That's a common example of the murder victim's family not supporting the prosecution. Here, the murder victim's family does not seem to support Amanda Knox. Why is that? You know, Nancy, one of the things that I keep thinking about is that their daughter is dead and Amanda is alive. And how painful is that for the family? And not only is Amanda alive, but there's, as we're talking about all the behavioral evidence, she was kissing her boyfriend at the scene, going and buying lingerie, so disrespectful towards Meredith and whatever the underlying psychological motivations for that behaviorally, it was a huge sign of disrespect.

So I can see why the family would not want more reminders of this. And also, Amanda has profited, even though the proceeds may have gone towards her legal defense. $4 million, that's a lot of money for a book. And she now has fame. She has notoriety. She's sort of situated for the rest of her life, even though she's had this horrible trauma. I think every time this family sees Amanda, they have to think about what would their own daughter's life have been like if she was alive. I was thinking during this show, how old would Meredith have been at this point? I think Meredith would have been, this was 10 years ago, right? This is the anniversary.

Meredith was 21 years old. She would have been 31 years old and living a full life. So how can they want to see Amanda living a full life when their own daughter was cut off from that possibility and that potential? Okay, Bethany, that actually makes a lot of sense to me. Because when, see, I can't say it nearly as well as you do. But when they see Amanda, it's everything Meredith can never be, and it reminds them of that horrible time. Do they blame Amanda? Do they still believe that she is involved and is guilty?

Linda Byron? I can only say what I've read and what I've seen reported, and that is that they have always had at least some suspicion that amanda was involved i mean i think they relied on the prosecutors and trusted the prosecutors to tell them that this is what happened and we have the evidence to back it up but no matter how i know that they were quote bitter with the non-guilty verdict and if they did not think that she was involved, then why were they bitter? Absolutely. That's troubling. That is very troubling, Ann Remner.

That Amanda either killed their daughter or was involved. And, you know, you have to think about, do they really want, the celebrity in all of this is Amanda Knox. Do they really want her to come back to Italy or to visit Perugia where the murder occurred? Because all of the hype and all of the hoopla and all of it is going to start all over again. I mean, people there have not forgotten about this. Well, this is what they have said. It's been years now since Meredith was murdered there in Italy.

The family, and I am quoting from The Independent, the family is in shock after the verdict. They don't wish to make any other declarations. I've had to explain to them there are now no avenues open to them. There is a great sense of bitterness. The reporter says the Kirchers, who had previously spoken of their confidence in the Italian

justice system have made it clear they believe Ms. Knox and Mr. Solicito were involved in the killing along with Rudy Gaudet who has already been jailed for murder. Now there's no getting around it until Italy's Supreme Court of Cassassian

has cleared Ms. Knox and Mr. Solicito. What does it mean? They say that there were changing alibis by Amanda Knox. They're convinced they're guilty, but they claim that Gaudet could never have acted alone. I think when you have a man and a woman alone in an apartment, that he can't overcome her, assault her, and murder her, because I've seen it happen so many, many times. There will always be those people that still believe Amanda Knox is guilty. But the Italian court has ruled and exonerated her.

But the mystery goes on. Ann Bremner, Linda Byron, Bethany Marshall, Alan Duke, thank you for being with us. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. Do you find yourself obsessing over unsolved mysteries? Do you wish there was a group of people just like you to talk motives and alibis with? If so, join the CrimeCon Cold Case Club and work alongside experts and fellow crime sleuths to help uncover new leads and theories in the cold cases they adopt. Their first cold case focuses on the mysterious disappearance of nursing student Mara Murray in 2004, and it's free to join thanks to Oxygen. Sign up now or find more info at club.crimecon.com. That's club.crimecon.com. This is an iHeart Podcast.