Crime Weekly - S3 Ep374: Meredith Kercher & Amanda Knox | The True Killer Revealed (Part 4)

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

In September 2007, 20-year-old American college student Amanda Knox moved to Perugia, Italy to study abroad and experience life on her own. She settled into a stone villa with three other young women and quickly began building friendships with her new roommates, forming a particularly close bond with 21-year-old British exchange student Meredith Kercher.Just weeks later, on November 2, Amanda would find herself standing outside that same home as police and paramedics rushed inside. Not fluent in Italian, she didn’t fully understand what was happening - only that Meredith had been found murdered in the villa they shared. Despite having no clue what was going on, Amanda became the focus of the murder investigation within hours. And what followed would become one of the most controversial criminal cases of the modern era, marked by intense scrutiny, global media coverage, and sharply divided opinions about guilt, innocence, and how justice is pursued when the world is watching.Try our coffee! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPodADS:1. https://www.EatIQBAR.com - Text WEEKLY to 64000 for 20% off ALL IQBAR products and FREE shipping!2. https://www.Rula.com/CrimeWeekly - Connect with a quality therapist TODAY!3. https://www.HelloFresh.com/CrimeWeekly10FM - Get 10 FREE meals and a FREE Zwilling Knife in your third box!

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasser. So we want to start off this episode with a really quick reminder that CrimeCon is coming back as it does every year. It's going to be May 29th through the 31st in Las Vegas. Caesar's Palace, baby. We're very excited about. I mean, I'm always excited about CrimeCon. I'm excited about Vegas. I know, Derek's excited about Vegas. We get it.

Caesar's Palace is great. Have you been to Caesar's Palace? I don't think so. Older hotel, but awesome. Yeah, I'm excited to get to CrimeCon again this year. Both Derek and I, we talked about it on Crime Weekly News, but if you missed that episode, we love getting to meet you guys. And that's why it's very important that if you're going to CrimeCon this year,

go to the CrimeCon website and use our code Crime Weekly to get 10% off your ticket. But that also helps us decide basically how much merch we're going to have to bring. I mentioned it in the Crime Weekly News, but we make a special design every single year. And it's just a once in a lifetime sort of design based on the city that the crime con is being held. People love it. It sells out so fast. And then we feel bad because it sells out halfway through crime con.

And then people are like, I really wish I'd been able to get that. But we just didn't know how many people were coming for us. And since it's only a one-time design, we have to be very careful and not make too much of it. Yeah, the code uses is the only way I can really calibrate the number I need to bring. And also how much time we need to allot at the booth itself. And that's another thing. We do a lot, a lot of time for each person because it's such a special event for us to be able to meet you guys, talk to you guys, see you in person, hear your stories, hear how you

started watching or listening to Crime Weekly and get your case recommendations, whatever you want to talk to us about. We want to be able to give you that time. It's not just like, oh, let's take a picture and move on in 30 seconds. We really want to give you guys as much time as we possibly can because it's such a special experience for for both of us to be able to meet you and spend time with you. So get ready for CrimeCon and May. We're very, very excited. It's going to be a great year. And we may be nominated for People's Choice Award for podcast again this year. And if we are or if you get the email saying,

hey, you know, vote for somebody. Please vote for us because we won last year. And it was one of the highlights of my life, to be honest with you. And we loved it. We were so grateful to you guys. So make sure you go to the CrimeCon website. If you're going to purchase your ticket, use our code Crime Weekly to get 10% off. It's the same code every year, by the way, guys. So always use that code so that we know you're coming to see us. We can make sure we have everything and we have enough time and we can be at the booth at certain times to make sure we get to meet everybody and spend time with everybody.

So that's my spiel. Yeah, there's a bunch of sessions with, you know, world-renowned forensic pathologists, psychologists, criminal profilers. People who've been in the game for years, like a Chris Hansen, Nancy Grace, they're up there doing live sessions that you can attend. and learn from these people in regards to certain cases they've worked. Vinnie Paulitan, I met him last year in the green room area. And I was like, and he was talking to me.

And he's like, oh, he knew me. And I was like, oh, my God, Finney knows me. And it was the coolest thing. And I was just, we were sitting there signing like the little booklets. And I was like, I'm right next to Vinny. This is crazy. I watch him. So I have a starstruck.

And it's just really cool. You get to see everybody that you watch on a daily basis. And they, you know, they spent. time with you and they talk about the cases. They usually have puppies there. They always have puppies there. And you know, you're not only getting to meet like your favorite podcasters and people on TV, but you're also getting to interact with the family members of a lot of the cases that we discuss right here. And it's like this big session where we all get together to talk about these cases, the more known, the more obscure and get the word out there. And it's just a really good event. I always have a good time. And if you've been thinking about going, this would be a great year to do. it because CrimeCon people, they've really dialed it in at this point where they know what they're doing. They got it figured out where it's spacious enough. You don't feel overstimulated, overcrowded.

And there's so much to do. The only negative thing is it's probably not enough time to do everything in just the four days. You're going to be, you're going to make some difficult choices as far as which sessions you attend, especially they have live podcast as well. So like Stephanie said, if you've been thinking about it, head on over to crimecon.com. com, use our code crime weekly. I'll keep updated on that to make sure I have a tally of how many of you are attending this year. And we're going to mention a few more times before May, but now's the time to do it.

You don't want to wait because the tickets do sell out fast. Okay. By the way, if you want to put in the comments, episode starts whenever. Go for it. Knock yourself out. Okay. I disagree. Don't do that.

Yeah. They love to do it. They're going to do it anyways. I know. They're going to do it, especially because we said something. Yes. A couple things about this episode about Amanda Knox before we go on. Nothing major, nothing bad.

Sometimes, you know, I say something that I got to come on here and correct or something like that. That is not the case this week. But as we always do, we're in the comments. We're hearing what you guys have to say. And I have to put a disclaimer out there that there's nothing too prevalent this week. It's just a couple comments where you have maybe 30 or 40 likes on it. So relatively speaking, it's not a large number.

it's definitely a minority, but I still think we got to hear everyone's voice and concerns and their opinions because that's how we become better storytellers. So I'm going to break the fourth wall here for a second, which is going to be a surprise to no one about what I'm about to say. But we always take these cases chronologically. Stephanie knows the story, the ending before we start part one. But she tells it in a way as if this is the first time she's ever said it. And I'm listening as if it's the first time I'm ever hearing it.

And in most cases, that is actually true. I don't know the details that Stephanie is disclosing to me. But just like in last week's episode, she had revealed that someone was charged and convicted in this case. So in part three, I already know that someone else has been charged with it. And I already knew that Amanda was exonerated in this case. I knew that before we started. How would I not?

But as I am reacting to the case, I'm reacting in a way where I don't know the end. I'm treating each thing individually. And so there are some comments that are like, how could they be saying this knowing that, you know, someone else, Rudy, who you mentioned last episode, was convicted of this. That's what we always do. That's the journey because not every single person listening to this case or watching this case knows the full story. And so they're going on that journey with me and with the rest of us. So that's number one.

Number two, my perspective on Amanda not remembering things or changing up her story or implicating Patrick in the murder and my opinion on it. That's exactly what it is, my opinion. It doesn't mean that I'm right. It doesn't mean that I'm wrong. Just like all of you, I'm going to feel one way about it. You may feel different. A lot of people, or I shouldn't even say a lot of people, but one person was saying, oh, you know, they, her frontal lobe wasn't completely. developed yet at 20 years old, so it's possible that could have played a role. I agree. I would

just counter that by saying at 20 years old, I was already a police officer, not saying my frontal lobe was completely developed, but I had to make tough decisions every day. And I could tell you, just anecdotally, at 20 years old when something happened a day or two prior, even though I was under a lot of stress, I could give you a little bit of what happened that night, especially if it was from the perspective as a witness. There are times that I've definitely messed things up. I talked about my shooting where I didn't remember that the lights were off. I thought they were on.

So there are little things like that. But again, this is my opinion. And the next thing that I want to talk about is interrogations in general. But before I do, because some people, they like to comment before hearing my complete thought, I've already said that I believe Amanda in her account. of what happened in that interrogation room. It makes sense. It's probably the reason they didn't record those interrogations.

They definitely stepped over the line in their interrogation tactics to capitalize on a young girl who was stressed out, scared. Who they thought was guilty, by the way. I genuinely think that they felt she was guilty for sure. That's why they went so hard. So just to reiterate, I believe that the tactics used in both Amanda's interrogation and Raphael interrogation, we're above what we should be doing as law enforcement officers. And obviously,

they're not going to say that in the aftermath. They're going to lie about it. So I acknowledge that. Now, put Amanda and Raphael's interrogation aside. And let's talk about interrogations in general, because I do think part of the reason you come here is because I've conducted hundreds of interrogations. And I did see some opinions that I don't want to say they're necessarily wrong, but they're not completely right. For example, one person said, you know, the only reason Raphael gave an incriminating statement towards Amanda was because more than likely those detectives lied to him and told him that Amanda was incriminating him. That's very well possible. It's possible, yeah.

And here's the reality. And you may not like it, but it's the truth. Interrogators are allowed to do that. In a more general sense, I can tell you that interrogations by nature are not comfortable for the recipient. Yes, you have to do them ethically. Yes, you can't torture them. Yes, you have to be respectful in understanding that these are human beings. And there's certain measures that you have to take to make sure that they're in the right state of mind and comfortable.

But if I went into every interrogation and just said to them, hey, I think you did it. And I just took them at their first response. 99.9% of my interrogations would result in them saying they didn't do it. Most of the time, that's what occurs. And there's a process, there's a dance, if you will, where you gain their trust. trust, you try to develop a rapport with them, you try and get the information that way, but if it doesn't work, you have to turn up the heat. And there are times where you're going to play their accomplices against them.

You're going to use trickery. You may even lie. You're going to maybe tell them that at some point, hey, listen, if you don't cooperate with me, I'm going to charge you and there's no deal after this. I'm not going to go to the prosecutor's office and offer you a sweetheart deal because you were cooperative. You're going to get charged to the fullest extent of the law. Is that a threat? Yeah, technically it is, but it's also a promise, right? So you may not like that, but I'm only here to be truthful and that may make you look differently at me, but I feel like most of you have a respect for me.

And I'm here to tell you that there are going to be times where you may not like the approach used in an interrogation, but that's how interrogations work. They're usually not fun for anybody involved. And they can take many hours. Now, in those. hours. I have to make sure that that person is allowed to go to the bathroom. I have to make sure that they're mentally aware of what's going on around them. If I start seeing them get a little lucid, I have to stop the interview with that point. So again, not conflating Amanda's interrogation with interrogations in general. I only say all this to say, hey, as we're going forward and we talk more about interrogations and interviews, there is a place we can go where it's still lawful. And

that is our job. Again, not pleasant, but it is part of it. And, I don't say that to correct anybody. I'd say that because most of you have never conducted an interrogation before, and I feel like you value my opinion on it. So I just wanted to share that, that there is a balance, and there's an ethical way of doing that. I don't think it was done here. But I also don't want to approach all of these cases under the understanding that, oh, man, you go in there, you ask questions, and if they tell you the same answer four times,

that's the end of it. That's not how it works. And I think we can acknowledge like, yeah, the police probably did their normal police tactics being overly aggressive and intentionally trying to put you off balance. But we can still be like, why did Amanda randomly blame her employer, Patrick? We can still say, you know, both things can be true at once. Yeah. And that was something else that people were like, oh, Derek's so hard on her for not remembering. That was something I brought up.

But I agree with you. My hardest pill to swallow is the extent of Patrick being. implicated by Amanda, her signing a document and going forward with that when it didn't even get her out of trouble. She still was arrested. But she put herself at the crime scene with Patrick saying he killed Meredith. And, you know, everyone's different. I wasn't there. I can tell you right now I wouldn't have done it.

Yeah, she not only put him at the crime, she put herself there. Yes. Yeah, she put herself there. And that was after Raphael. So there are some things here where it's hard to understand. You know, I don't necessarily agree with it. Maybe in hindsight, I don't think Amanda would have gone that route. either. So everyone's entitled to their opinion. Keep it respectful down in the comments. Everyone has.

And again, I'm talking about something where half of you are just on audio, so you're not familiar with anything I'm saying right now. The other half is on YouTube and most of you aren't commenting in the comment section. And even the ones that are, most of you got it. But there were a few who really had an issue with the fact that I was quote unquote hard on Amanda. But just to kind of recap this, I'm approaching it in real time as Stephanie's conveying. that story to me so I can have a a true natural reaction to how I feel in that moment, even though I know the outcome of this story for the most part. I'm just trying to, we're trying to tell you guys a story and I don't want to lie. So that was my natural reaction to it. It's really

all I had. Yeah. So we can jump in. I'm going to give you a little update. Episode starts at 15 minutes. I'm going to give you an update as to where we are now. So on the evening of November 5th, 2007, Amanda Knox and her boyfriend, Raphael Solicito, went to the Perugia police station, believing they were helping detectives clarify what had happened to Meredith Kircher, Amanda's roommate. Over the course of the night, the two were questioned separately and asked to repeatedly retrace their movements on November 1st. So as the hours passed, investigators grew more suspicious and the pressure mounted. By the morning, Raphael had changed his story, no longer providing an alibi for Amanda for the evening. evening of November 1st, and meanwhile, Amanda told detectives that her boss, Patrick Lumumba, had killed Meredith. Based on these statements, Amanda, Raphael, and Patrick were all arrested

for Meredith's murder. Rafael and Amanda quickly recanted what they had said, but it was too late. Police announced the arrest publicly and declared the investigation closed, despite no forensic evidence being tested and no meaningful investigation into Patrick's involvement. Just days later on November 8th, all three were ordered to remain in custody for up to a year while the investigation continued. Amanda, Raphael, and Patrick were shocked by what was happening and were hopeful they'd proved their innocence soon, but only one person would get their wish. So that's where we are now. So with Amanda, Raphael, and Patrick now in custody, media coverage absolutely exploded, with headlines and commentary framing the case around drugs, sex, even satanic rituals.

Much of what the media reported came from leaked information, and the bulk of it cast Amanda in an extremely negative light. News outlets portrayed her as reckless and sexually aggressive, zeroing in on a photograph of her at Raphael kissing outside the villa not long after Meredith's body was found. That moment was framed as evidence that the two were more interested in each other than in Meredith's death. Reporters then started digging into Amanda's personal life, detailing the men she'd slept with since arriving in Italy and using her sexuality as a central part of the narrative. So Amanda's MySpace name was Foxy-Noxy. That was pulled from context and then repurposed as a sexualized label rather than the nickname she'd been given on the soccer field. They kind of said like, oh, this is what she's calling herself. Yeah, that's crazy. That's wild.

Yeah, she's self-identifying as being this like, you know, sex pop, man-eater kind of thing. And then coverage increasingly suggested that Amanda's sexuality itself was central to the crime, portraying her as someone who had manipulated Raphael and Patrick into killing Meredith. So while the public attention spiraled, detectives were beginning to receive forensic results from the villa. So already, the genie's out of the bottle. All of this stuff's happening. and this is when the actual evidence starts coming in. So let's walk through what the testing showed, starting with fingerprints.

This is what I've been waiting for. Are you interested to hear what kind of results came from the feces in the toilet? That was the number one comment on YouTube this week, by the way. Was it? Yeah, something about being excited about feces. Yeah, you said I can't wait to talk about that feces. Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about the fingerprints.

Out of all the prints collected at the scene, only, 61 were usable for comparison, and only 48 of those could be identified. So 17 belonged to Meredith, including one on Amanda's wardrobe, something that would later be highlighted by the investigators. Only one print was compatible with Amanda, and it was found on a glass in the kitchen. Now, this is interesting to me, and I wanted to ask you about this because it's always bothered me. She lives there at the villa. I love this. Why are you? Why are you? are her prints only being found in one place in the villa when she lives there. This is so applicable to all the cases we cover, right?

Because people always say, well, so-and-so, they're saying they did it, but there wasn't any of their fingerprints found in the apartment. I've said it a million times, guys, the fingerprint stuff, it's such a crapshoot. It really is. It could be a variety of variables that could ultimately decide whether or not you're able to retrieve a fingerprint from a crime scene. as you just mentioned, Amanda lived there. Her fingerprints have been all over that place.

Yet, depending on how oily her skin was, what substrates she touched, what type of cleaners are used, the actual collection of those fingerprints by the investigators there, you have to use a tape lifting technique to lift that fingerprint. And if that fingerprint isn't enhanced before trying to lift it, it may actually destroy the fingerprint. and the way you would enhance it is by using cyanacrolite or superglum to try to raise the ridges or harden the ridges of the fingerprint and then applying dust to it and you have to make sure you're using the right the powders.

Are you using magnetic powder? Are you using the regular powder? Are you using a silicone brush? Are you using a feathered brush? Are you using a fiber brush? There's so many things that could screw up a print. So yes, I don't know why there was only one print here. It could be user error.

It could be just the area they were in and what they actually processed. But this is important to take in future cases because although you would expect to see a million prints in there from Amanda, legally, reasonably, you got one. And we know that she's touched more than one thing in there. So something to carry with you as we cover different cases. So does that mean that just, you know, you're not leaving these super, super clear fingerprints everywhere? or does that mean that the scene was wiped down? It could mean that the scene was wiped down. It could also mean that when Amanda's in there touching different items,

she's not touching them like this. And you have to be on YouTube, but she's not going up to it and going, and then lifting her fingers off nice and flat. And for people on audio, like to get that print, if you've ever given your fingerprints before, whether it's for a passport or whatever or just a background check, you have to roll your finger on the glass.

or on the ink the paper after you apply the ink, because they got to get the full ridge detail to actually be able to identify you later. Most people when you're touching something, you're swiping, you're sliding, you're pushing, you might do a half a fingerprint on there. So are there other fingerprints in that home that belonged to Amanda?

Yes, but were they able to be identified? Obviously not. But to your point, it also could be because things were wiped down. but if you're Amanda, why would you wipe down a crime scene where you legally have the right to be? It wouldn't be. It actually looks worse that your fingerprints aren't there. Yeah, but if you're Amanda, why would you go into the police station and say you were at the scene of the crime and your boss Patrick was there too? You know, like...

Yeah, there's definitely some unexplainable things. But yes, as far as fingerprints, they're still necessary. They still can help solve a case, but they're hard. It's so hard. Whenever I had to rely on dusting a crime scene, yeah, I was not hopeful. So another 24 prince belonged to Laura Filomena and Meredith's boyfriend who lived in the basement flat. Now, we have not heard before that Meredith has a boyfriend during this time, right? Because the police went through her phone and they said, well, we know she wasn't, you know, talking to a bunch

of guys. She hadn't just recently met somebody. And now we're finding Meredith Kircher actually is dating somebody who lives in the basement flat. And, This is semi important because this was an Italian man. He was 22 years old. His name was Giacomo Salensi. And he and Meredith had only been dating for about 10 days by the time that she was killed. So it kind of seemed like the same thing with Amanda and Raphael, like they met. And then, you know, they started spending some time together.

And they'd only been together for a short time. So according to Giacomo, he said that Meredith was beautiful. She was an innocent girl. He said, quote, we had only just started our relationship, and maybe it was too early to talk about love, but we really had an affection for each other. End quote. He said that Meredith moved into the flat above his at the end of the summer, and they would pop into each other's places to say, hello, or have a cup of coffee, you know, the things that neighbors do.

He said she was very pretty. He was impressed with her Italian. They'd listened to music together and share CDs. And then at the end of September, it was his own. birthday, Meredith couldn't make the party because she was flying back to England for the weekend, and she gave him a bottle of rum as a present. He said most of it was consumed at the party, but there is a drop left at the time of her murder. He said he's going to keep that forever. Now, Giacomo said it was a few weeks after that, around the middle of October, that they kissed

for the first time at a student party, and then they made love a couple of days later in his flat. And Giacomo came out and said that he too was suspicious of Amanda when Meredith first died. He said that he was not at the flat. He wasn't even in Perugia when it happened. He was at his parents' house and he was on his way back from his parents' house. And when he got back into the city, the police took him to the police station. And he said he had a cast iron alibi because he had been at his parents' house since Monday. It was a bank holiday in Italy.

And he had gone to the waiting room and he said Amanda was there. She hugged him. She said how sorry she was. She introduced him to her boyfriend Raphael. Giacomo had never met Raphael by this point. And he said, quote, I couldn't help thinking how cool and calm Amanda was. Meredith's other English friends were devastated and I was upset. But Amanda was as cool as anything in completely emotionless. Her eyes didn't seem to show any sadness. And I remember wondering if she could have been involved. I spoke with her English friends, Robin Butterworth and Sophie Parton afterwards. And they said the same thing. none of us could quite understand how she was taking it all so calmly. I knew that Amanda didn't get on with Meredith, but I didn't think that would lead to Amanda killing her.

End quote. So this is from Giacomo, Meredith's boyfriend, who apparently lived in the basement apartment in the same building. And he's not a suspect because he's not even in the city at the time of the murder. Yeah, it wasn't physically capable of doing it. But it's important to know that he exists. because now is Meredith inviting somebody else in for sex when she's got this very, you know, kind of close and developing relationship happening with Giacomo and they've just recently shared a kiss and they've just had sex for the first time and it's a developing relationship.

He's out of town. Is Meredith the kind of girl who's going to have consensual sex with another man while she's in this blossoming relationship with somebody that, you know, she can potentially care about a lot? it didn't seem, according to her family and the people who knew her, that she was that sort of person. I'll also say, though, I mean, 10 days isn't that long. I mean, the fact that we're describing it here for the purpose of the story and context, but it's only 10 days. So would I be mad at her or anybody else for that matter if they were talking to two people at that same time?

No, not at all. It's 10 days. It's not like we're talking about 10 years. Jesus. Yeah. But, you know, once again, was it in character for her? Would it be wrong or, you know, like something to judge her for? No, but was it in character for her?

One thing I will say is it doesn't seem based on what her relationship was with Giacomo that she's going to have someone that she meets randomly that night come over. You know, it started slow with them. You know, they listen to music first, all that stuff. Had coffee, listen to music. Right. Yeah. And this is someone who had been living down below her.

So how long did they know each other before it even got to the? that point. Just a couple months, yeah. Right. So there's a little bit of a buildup there. So there we have that. And then we have five prints in the flat, Meredith and Amanda's flats, that were attributed to Amanda's boyfriend Raphael. His fingerprints appeared on the outside of Meredith's bedroom door, which isn't crazy because we know he was trying to get in, on the refrigerator in the kitchen, and on the inside face of Laura's bedroom door. That's kind of interesting. Yeah, I mean, it also could be explained by, for whatever reason. We don't know how much they shared, you know, hey, do you have the remote in there or something?

I don't know. I mean, I could see going in other people's rooms. I, you know, when I was dating in college, you'd go into a different roommate's room because there was something in there. You needed a notebook or something. So does not a huge red flag for me. Something you want to acknowledge, but not the, if his fingerprints were all over Meredith's room, not just on the back of the door. and maybe a little bit more. And only on the outside of Meredith's bedroom door.

Right, right, which is totally explainable. So, I mean, also maybe that day when they were kind of looking around the flat, maybe Raphael went into Laura's room with Amanda while they were kind of looking around and that happened. So that could be. Can I mention one thing about Meredith's door, her lock as well? We got a comment from one of our listeners, viewers. I haven't had a chance to confirm this yet, but just to mention it so we're fully transparent.

This individual, his name's Jason, he said that Meredith's door, all of the doors were actually Corbyn style locking mechanisms, meaning they could be unlocked and locked from the inside. It doesn't really change too much of what we're saying because we know the door was locked. And either way, someone either locked the door from the inside and then shut it behind them or used the key. So I still think it's relevant. And I also think the fact that Meredith's key was never found is more suggestive that the door was locked using the key or the key would still have been in her room.

But I just wanted to put that out there for full transparency. Okay, so one handprint was discovered on the pillow. How do you get a handprint from a pillow? Was it in blood maybe? See, that's what I'm saying. I was never the best fingerprint person. We had someone from Providence PD who actually got a set of fingerprints, which led to an arrest, by the way, off a Hershey's candy bar wrapper.

That makes more sense than a pillow. It was still fascinating to me. I'm like, she put it in a chamber where they were able to sort, smoke it and enhance the fingerprints on it, boom, nailed them. It was great. I wonder if it's a handprint that's in blood and that's how they're able to pick it up. Yeah, they may not have to be able to lift it. They could just enhance it through not only the color of it, but they can also enhance it. If it's blood, like you said, using LcV or some other chemical to enhance it and then photograph it and then enhance it through a photo editor

to compare it to an actual fingerprint. Or maybe even sweat or, you know, just the oils on your hand if you can enhance that. It's porous. So it's likely that they weren't able to lift the print from the fabric material. It was something they could visibly see, enhance, photograph, and then compare to the samples that they had taken from the different individuals. Well, this handprint, it didn't match anyone known to the police. Not the roommates, not Raphael, not Patrick. That print was sent for comparison against police databases. An additional 13 prints could not be identified at all, and to this day they remain unidentified. A lot of people going in and out of there, though. Yeah, it either suggests that there's a lot of people going in and out of there, or it could be

even maybe prints, I don't know where they took the prints from, of people who lived there before possibly. This is a college flat, you know, that's getting rented out to college students who come in and out every semester every year. Any utility workers that went in there, maybe worked on cable, the TV or so, who knows? Million explanation. Plumbers, electricians. So investigators also examined shoe prints. In total, 17 bloody shoe prints were documented in the villa.

Fifteen of those were found on the floor. Seven were in Meredith's bedroom and did not match anyone known to the police. Two were in the corridor, also unmatched. Six were found in the kitchen and living area, though only two were usable and neither matched known individuals. This is huge, by the way, right? So we got somebody, we got somebody walking. through blood, which suggests they were in Meredith's room because it was locked when everyone

else got there. That's right. Huge. That makes it a lot more important than the fingerprint. Now if the fingerprints in blood, then they were there after the fact. So yes, the bloody footprints, I would say, are even more valuable than any fingerprints were covered unless those fingerprints were in blood as well. So the other two bloody shoe prints were found on the pillow beneath Meredith's body and both once again were unmatched. Why is that important? That's important because, I mean, once again, whoever was in that room with her, they can't match those prints to Raphael, Amanda, or Patrick, even though none of us think Patrick was there. Well, what's also important is it's telling you a timeline, right? It's the same thing with the rock found in the other room.

It gives you an order which things occurred. So you saying that there was a bloody footprint on the pillowcase or on the floor underneath Meredith means that that person was not only in there after she, she was killed, but even before she was on the floor. Yeah. So something happened in there. She was injured. She was bleeding. They stepped on this fabric, transmitted that print, and then eventually she ended up on top of it.

So that's giving you an order in which it occurred. So not only is it a bloody print, but now you know that person, whoever was wearing that footwear, was in that room before Meredith came to her final resting place. I don't know why, but for some reason when you said the rock, I thought about Dwayne Johnson. Yeah, Dwayne Johnson was there as well. And I was like, what does Dwayne Johnson? Johnson have to do with this. You don't, am I forgetting something that immediately when you said the rock?

No, it gives you an order. The evidence is telling you a story. So then there's a bloody footprint that was visible on the bath mat in the bathroom where Amanda took the shower, remember? So that print was determined to be compatible with Raphael's footprint and contained DNA that was compatible with Meredith's profile. Okay. That's interesting.

Yeah. That could be explained if we know that he entered the room. Even if it was only a couple feet, how far out was that blood? Did he step in a little bit of blood and then go, oh, my God, I can't go in here and walk back out? That could explain it. But the door was locked. So if he, I mean, so here's what I'm thinking. There was blood on the bath mat.

And then when Raphael came in afterwards, if he has nothing to do with this, he stepped on the bath mat, which is then putting his footprint into like forming that blood into his footprint. That's possible. I guess. Transmission of trace evidence. Yeah. Why would you step on the bloody bath mat in the bathroom? I guess maybe he was just maybe looking for Meredith. Maybe he was like pulling back the shower curtain to see if she was in there for some.

I don't know. But once again, still interesting. I've had it happen before where a crime scene tech or patrolman was in a crime scene and they're not trying to do anything bad, but they accidentally step on a small spot of blood. And then as I'm canvassing the area, I see half a partial bloody footprint in a room that has no part. of this case. And I'm like, hmm, that doesn't make sense. I'm like, hey, everyone left up your boots. And then quickly, I'm like, dude, that's your boot print.

Yeah, you idiot. Yeah, now make sure you sign in on the crime scene log because now I have to take your boots from you and rule you out. So it's not intentional, but it can happen. So we still have a lot more DNA and forensic evidence to go over. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor.

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plus free shipping to get your 20% off. Text weekly to 64,000. Once again, text weekly to 64,000. And in case you didn't hear it the first two times, that's weekly to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply C-terms for details. Okay, we're back. So now we have hair. Now, hair evidence was limited. Of the 24 hairs tested for DNA, only three produced usable profiles, and all three were compatible with Meredith's DNA. Clothing worn by Amanda, Raphael, and Patrick, including every item they were known to have worn that night, tested negative for blood and showed no visible signs of having been worn during a violent assault. As for the knife seized from Raphael's apartment, investigators claimed the results showed traces of Amanda's DNA, on the handle and traces of meridus DNA on the blade. Now, tests indicated that neither trace was from human blood, though investigators noted

the negative result could be explained by the extremely small size of the samples. This is going to come up later, but right now, I think what the police are doing is kind of fitting evidence to, it's that, you know, that whole confirmation bias thing, because you've got to ask yourself, even if it wasn't blood or human, blood DNA that was on the blade, but they're saying Meredith's DNA was on the blade. How the heck would Meredith Kircher's DNA get on a blade of a knife that was in Raphael's apartment, even if it's like a transfer thing. This is kind of extreme. That would definitely be an issue for Amanda and Raphael. I think here what you have is investigators putting two and two together without having the full

results, also wishful thinking for them as well. And I think what they did was they did like a preliminary just kind of analysis of that blood where it can tell you what you might be looking at. It's not as good as an actual DNA test. And so, yeah, this is going to be a problem for them if we determine later that it's not Meredith's DNA because there goes their murder weapon theory up in flames. Yeah. So what I think happened is they kind of did it. And they were like, oh, it's a really small sample.

And some of these markers match Meredith Kirchers markers, but not all of them. So we're just going to go ahead and announce that it's Mary Annette. its DNA. And I don't see how that could be possible. And then you can't say in hindsight, oh, you know, it's just because of sample size. It's too small. It's not how it works. It either is or it isn't. So while investigators waited for results on the remaining unidentified evidence, they continued searching for witnesses who might have seen Amanda, Raphael, and Patrick on the night of November 1st. During that process, they heard from a Swiss school teacher who had been visiting Perugia at the time of Meredith's murder. And he explained that he went to Le Sheik, Patrick's Barreux, Patrick's

several times during his stay. And then on the evening of November 1st, he went there for dinner. And he was confident about the date because it was the night before he left Prussia to return home. The teacher said he arrived at around 8.30 p.m. And he stayed until approximately 9.55 p.m. And Patrick was the only person working in the bar. And they spoke throughout the visit since it was a slow night.

Now, this once again is an alibi for Patrick, but I still question it because a question it because according to the police, Patrick didn't ring anything out until around that 1030 mark. And Patrick later said, well, that was because people ran up tabs and I didn't start charging anybody till then. But if this teacher says that he was there from 830 till 955, having dinner, wouldn't you have had to have paid for your dinner before you left? And so shouldn't it have shown he was charged at 955 before that 1030 point when police said Patrick's first sale went through?

or maybe he was with a group of people who stayed and they ended up paying for everything. I don't know, but it's not matching up. Could have been a cash transaction where maybe there was no like paid receipt for you. You still have to put that through the cash register. You would expect to see something, yeah. Unless Patrick was like, I'm stuck here on the slow night.

I'm going to put this in my pocket. It's my bar. You know, that could be it. Yeah, that too. That's also a possibility. Or he put the check aside and was going to cash it out later with all his other ones because he didn't have that many people. Well, so the investigators found the teachers,

account was credible and at that point it appeared that Patrick did in fact have an alibi. And that raised a different problem. If Patrick was telling the truth, then Amanda's statement placing him at the villa could not be accurate. And detective struggled to understand why she would make that claim, just like we have. That could have something to do with them beating her over the head. It could have something to do. Yeah, that could change her opinion, right?

Well, they chose to wait for the remaining test results before formally dropping the charges against Patrick, which I kind of agree with. You know, at this point, you've got an alibi, but you've got a bunch of DNA evidence coming in. And once again, the comprehension of why Amanda would randomly throw her boss under the bus for a murder. It's very difficult to understand. So the police were like, hey, we don't have the full story here. Let's wait. And by the way, you can't completely rule it out because even if he was at the bar until 11 p.m.,

we don't know the exact time that Meredith was murdered. We know that or we believe, I should say, it happened something. time that night or early in the morning. She wasn't found until the next day. So is it possible someone could be at work and then yet still go over to the flat and killer? Of course. But yeah, it's not looking good for the theory of Patrick did this. Also, it's just an eyewitness alibi statement. And this is a murder case. So that just can't be enough. Now, detectives continued reviewing Amanda and Raphael's movements on November 1st to see whether their alibis could be confirmed. However, they were unable to fully support the couple's claim.

that they remained at Raphael's apartment for the entire night. Evidence showed that Amanda and Raphael watched the movie Amelie on Raphael's laptop from around 6.30 p.m. until roughly 9.10 p.m. So we do have evidence that they watched that movie. After that, the laptop was not used again until 5.32 a.m., which is interesting. Because remember, I mean, if you're going to sleep so late, why are you using the laptop at 532? and Raphael said he didn't wake up until like, I think, 6.30. So not only does that not really match with Raphael's saying when he went to sleep and when he woke up,

but this also contradicted Raphael's earlier statements when he was throwing Amanda under the bus, saying he'd spent much of the night on his computer because she wasn't there. Yeah. Investigators also examined Meredith's financial records and learned that shortly before her death, she had withdrawn 250 euros to pay rent. That money was not found in her bedroom or her purse, but also her landlord never. received it. So this indicated that cash had been taken from Meredith's room along with her keys and her phones. So before we're kind of saying, hey, it looks like somebody tried to make this look

like a break-in or like a robbery gone wrong. And we still don't believe that that's what happened. We don't believe somebody entered the apartment with the motive to rob the apartment. And then Meredith just happened to be there. And so they assaulted her and killed her. But whoever was there with her when probably when they were going through her purse to get her her phones and things like that they saw cash and they were like hey this is cash it's not traceable i'm going to take it and so they did they did take some cash allegedly unless meredith did something else with that cash well spent it before what would she have done if she got it for her rent though and you got to pay the rent and it's november first we all know sometimes rent money ends up in the casino slots

that is true but i'm not saying that's what she did but we know it happens meredith isn't you That money burns a hole in your pocket sometimes, you know, I'm just saying. On November 16th, two weeks after Meredith was found, forensic testing identified the partial bloody palm print on the pillow beneath her body. Now, this print belonged to someone previously unknown to investigators, a 20-year-old man from West Africa named Rudy Godday. When detectives looked into Rudy, they realized he was the same man multiple witnesses had referred to as the Baron. He was the person said to have had a crush on Amanda, the one who played basketball with the men in the basement flat, which I guess includes Meredith's boyfriend now, and the same man remembered for using the toilet and not flushing it. Jail. Yeah, I mean, right?

Instantly. Convicted. I get it. It's circumstantial evidence, but it's kind of all matching up with the matter. It's absolutely important. Well, the further investigation revealed that Rudy had a criminal history, and he was a known thief who often carried. a knife. Now, he'd previously broken into homes and offices in Prussia and other areas by throwing a rock through a window, a method that mirrored what was seen at the villa. He was also known to threaten people with a knife if confronted. Now, Rudy, he lived in Prussia, so not far from Raphael's apartment, but when detectives went to his home to question him, guess what? He was gone.

Not there. But he did not flush his toilet. They found an apartment with a full toilet. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. but Rudy wasn't there. I'm just kidding. And Rudy's landlord actually told the police that Rudy had left town shortly after Meredith's murder. This is pretty suspicious, right? All of it's kind of pointing at Rudy now. Now, at that point, investigators concluded that Rudy was involved in Meredith's murder, and then they no longer believed that Patrick was responsible.

So an international arrest warrant was issued for Rudy, and Patrick was released from jail. Great. Patrick's been, you know, cleared at this point. he can go home to his child and his business, even though his reputation is probably never, probably never recovered totally from this. But even so, prosecutor Giuliano McNini did not abandon his theory that Meredith's murder occurred during a sex game gone wrong. McNini was really holding on to the sex stuff. Instead, he just replaced Patrick in the scenario with Rudy.

He further theorized that Amanda may have falsely accused Patrick in order to protect Rudy. And the other reason would be because Rudy, as I said in the previous episode, knows their involvement. And if they give him up, he's going to implicate them as well. And I've seen this before. So Amanda's like, let me falsely accuse someone else so Rudy can get away kind of thing? Allegedly. Even though you're the one in police custody. Yeah, I've definitely had, especially in drug cases where I've had someone implicate their supplier who's not their supplier, but they know sells drugs because they want to,

lead them down or lead us down the wrong path. They don't want to give up their number one. Also because they're number one, if we tell them, hey, Stephanie gave you up, now that person's going to give them up and everything they're involved in. So, yeah, it would be, it would be an option that has been done by criminals in the past. So you're saying Giuliano McNini's theory, not crazy. Not crazy. No, not crazy.

Not really substantiated by any of the evidence yet. We know that Rudy was there, but we still don't know if there's a connection between Rudy and Amanda. And because, like you said earlier, if the handprint on the pillow is in blood, then that person was in Meredith's bedroom before. Game over. She was murdered or at least before she was placed. Yeah.

Or before she was placed. Like you could even argue, oh, he walked in and found her murdered and he moved her body, but that doesn't necessarily, I mean, his lawyer would argue, right? That doesn't necessarily mean he committed the murder. He may have interfered with the crime scene, but it doesn't mean he killed her just because you found his bloody handprint. but he was definitely in that room. He was in that room prior to law enforcement and survival.

Yes, exactly. Which is a huge problem, right? We know that once law enforcement got there, Rudy didn't enter that room. Nobody did really, right? So at some point, he was in there after the assault before law enforcement, which is not that big of a window. Yeah. And I do think it's interesting. They said, oh, he was known to use a rock to throw through the window to break in.

And that doesn't mean, once again, in this case, it doesn't mean that he threw the rock. through the window in order to break in. But it means he knows, hey, in the robberies and the home invasions I've been involved in, which is more than one, I've thrown a rock through a window. So that's how you'll stage it. I'm going to say something. I'm so proud of you right there because I was going to say that. And you stole it from me.

And I'm so glad that you did because there were some people who criticized us for moving on from the robbery gone wrong theory so quickly. And I don't want to regurgitate what I already said. what we've said, but you got to, it's always possible, but you got to apply some level of common sense, not only where the window is located and how difficult it would be to get to, but if Meredith is inside the apartment and a rock comes flying through the window, there's going to be an opportunity for her to flee that apartment before said person comes inside. Now, maybe she doesn't, right?

Maybe she doesn't do that. But the person on the outside who's committing this crime, although robbers or morons, most of the time, they're going to see that there's. there's lights on, they're going to see that there's activity at the house. They may not choose that apartment. They may choose the first floor or basement apartment because that one's empty, right? That's the easier, softer target. So is it possible?

Yes. Is it likely? No. However, for the people who are going to hear what you said about the rock and the MO and see Derek, look it. This is the guy who did it. He was trying to rob the place. Not so fast.

That just means he has an understanding and a knowledge of how these. crimes are conducted, which to me is even more indicative that he did it after the fact because he knows what law enforcement usually finds in these types of crime scenes. Because he's doing it. And I would be very interested to know, okay, Rudy's used rocks to get into houses before. Has he ever climbed up a wall and used it on the second floor? Or has he used on the first floor to just enter the premises and then just, you know, go up the stairs, which seems more likely. If you're watching the apartment and you see, like you said, lights on and you see movement on that floor.

You're not going to be like, let me just toss a rock into the second floor and get in there. Because like you said, you're going to notify someone that you're trying to get in. Now, listen, it was on the first floor and you can break open that window

and immediately jump inside, maybe. Maybe. You could argue that if he's scaling the wall from the window below it, and we had the picture up last week, maybe you throw the rock and you're right there, right below the window and you jump inside.

But there's still a delay there. You don't know who's inside. Is Meredith in there with someone else? Is a guy going to come in? that room and bust open your skull with a bat as you're climbing in the window, it's too much of a risk. And holding the rock means you're scaling the wall with one hand now. I mean, unless he had a bag, I guess.

I mean, it's possible. But now it's heavier. Like, it just doesn't, logically, it doesn't make sense. Yeah. What's more likely? Barron, taking a rock, throwing into the window, notifying Meredith, raising alarms, and then getting inside before she has a chance to escape the apartment, or because he's been there before and has a previous relationship.

or at least a, you know, a familiarity with her knocking on the door and saying, hey, it's me, Baron. And then as soon as she opens, maybe not right away, but shortly after things go south. What's more likely? I'm not saying it's an absolute, but I would argue it's much more likely that the second option took place over the first one. At the very least, even if Rudy has never been inside Meredith and Amanda's flat, he's been inside the basement flat because he's friends with those guys.

He plays basketball with them. And even from just knowing them and maybe casually asking questions because he's pretending to be interested in Amanda. Like, oh, that Amanda girl, she's pretty cute, you know? What's a deal up there? Like, how many people live up there with her? Like, asking rent, now you're going to gain knowledge about what's happening in that flats. Who's there? Who's not there?

He would probably know that nobody in the basement apartment was going to be home. He would probably know that the other roommates were gone. Yeah, he could have knocked on Meredith Storm and been like, oh, hey, I came over to see my friends in the basement flat, but no one's there. Like, do you know where they are? and she could have had her guard down because she's maybe seen him with them before and her boyfriend lives there. Which is even more in line with

the way he approached was more as a friendly than a foe at first because I think it's highly unlikely that he knew Amanda was staying at her boyfriends that night. I think he would have entered the apartment and said, oh, where's Amanda tonight? And Meredith would have gone, oh, she's staying with her boyfriend. They're going to just stay. Or she's at work.

Or she's at work. Something. Right, right. Something like that where now he's under the, impression that he has a few hours to do whatever he wants to do. That's that comfortability. You think it's possible he could have gone there that night and actually had an interest in Amanda and wanted to attack her or do something with her, but because Meredith was there, that's just, you know, that kind of where the crime of opportunity comes in. Stephanie, I'm not even completely sure if originally it was an attack. It might have been just an aggressive, like, hey, I'm pursuing you tonight. And as soon as he did and realized that he had crossed the line,

now he's operating under the assumption that, oh my God, I can't leave. I took that too far. She's going to say something tomorrow. I have to shut her up. The intentionality may not have been to commit a crime or an assault at all. It was his actions at the house where Meredith was not interested. He didn't take no for an answer. And at that point, based on her reaction, he felt he had no other choice.

He could have been drinking that night. Yes. Maybe let me go over and see Amanda because I'm kind of horny and I'm drunk. And then Meredith's there and he's like, where's Amanda? And she's like, oh, she's at work. Usually she gets out at this time. Do you mind if I come in and wait for her? And as he's sitting there and waiting for Amanda, he's like, man, I'm really, you know,

these like kind of aggressive type men. Like, I really need to do this. And we're alone. And Meredith's looking pretty good right now. And then like you said, yes, it becomes a sexual assault. And then afterwards, once that, you know, immediate urgency in him is gone, he's like, oh, what did I do? Exactly.

And he might, who knows, he might have went over there to see the people on the first floor. And then when he realized they were gone, and like you said, if he's had a couple drinks or even if he's stone cold, sober. Yeah, he's like none of her roommates are here. These guys are not home. Who's going to know I was here except for Meredith? And if she's gone, nobody will know. Except then he decided to use the bathroom, I guess.

Yeah, well, that's because at first, that's what I'm saying. At first, it was a friendly interaction. Initially, he's there. They're watching TV or something maybe. He uses the bathroom. Things in his mind are going one direction. and in mirror this mind, they're going another. But he was aggressive, he didn't take no for an answer, and things went south.

But when we talk about familiarity and we talk about comfortability, like we did in episode one and two, it doesn't have to be long term. It can be developed and established in a matter of minutes, him realizing that they're alone, him having an understanding of the layout of the apartment, and him knowing when people are supposed to be back, there's your comfortability to stay there and stay just seen after the fact. I mean, yeah, this kind of even gives me more feeling that he got there and hung out for a bit before he committed the attack. I mean, he could have been out and about and been like, I really need to use the bathroom. Let me go see if my buddies are home because I'm right here in the neighborhood.

They weren't home. Imagine that's the reason. Yeah, they weren't home. He knocks on Meredith's store and he's like, man, I'm so sorry to do this to you. I went over to use, you know, their bathroom, but they're not home. Like, this cannot wait. It's all Saints Day. So maybe there's a lot of places close.

He can't use some public bathrooms? He's like, can I really come in and use the bathroom? Like, I promise. And then he goes in and maybe Meredith's in her room and he's doing that. And then maybe he's like, after he's doing that, he's like, let me do this. So, yeah. And that tracks too because I don't think if Meredith wasn't interested, which she wasn't, you know, based on what we know, she was in her room. And he invited himself into her room.

She might have been down in that hallway, getting ready for bed. And that's when he walks in because otherwise, you have to assume that she invited him into her room. And that doesn't, based on what we know about Meredith so far, in her relationship with the guy downstairs, she wouldn't have done that. So her being found in her room is obviously suggested that the crime occurred in that room and the offender came in on her. So, yeah, I completely agree with you. Well, soon after the warrant for Rudy was issued, additional forensic results from the villa further connected him to the crime. His DNA was identified on Meredith's vaginal swab inside her purse found on the bed, on the left, sleeve of her sweatshirt and on evidence recovered from the toilet he had used. Furthermore, a shoe print

discovered in Meredith's bedroom beneath the quilt covering her body was found to be compatible with Rudy's Nike Outbreak 2 shoes. Investigators formally ruled out the earlier suggestion that the print had been left by Raphael's Nike Air Force ones. Despite this, though, detectives continue to maintain that Amanda and Raphael were involved in Meredith's murder alongside Rudy, and at this point, is it tunnel vision? Is it pride? Like we went so hard on these two kids and now we have to somehow make it so that they're involved, even if they weren't the main offender, they were involved in some way. What is it in the police's like thought process where, okay, it's very clear it was this person, his DNA's all over. He's responsible for the sexual assault. He's responsible for the

feces left in the toilet. He was clearly tromping around in her blood. She had money missing out of her purse and her phones were gone. His DNA's found in her purse. His DNA's found on her sweatshirt. But still, we have to find a way to make Amanda and Raphael somehow connected to this. Is it pride? Is it tunnel vision? Do you really think at this point that the police believed Amanda and Raphael were involved or did they just want to save face? So worst case, it's just wanting to save face and implicating two innocent people, maybe because she's an American citizen. There could be a lot of things going on behind the scenes where they're implicating an innocent person because, candidly, they just don't like them. Or on the other end,

they were so steadfast on trying to give justice from Meredith and finding out who is responsible that in those interrogations, they took it way too far. Because in their minds, the means justified the end. And in their aggressiveness, in their overstepping, they end up getting false confessions. But from where they were operating from, they felt like those false confessions were actually a truth being told under extreme pressure. So they're operating from, okay, we have the forensic evidence to support this one person, and we have these two other individuals implicating each other. But the forensic evidence doesn't really implicate them at all. It doesn't implicate them at all, and there is an explanation for some of it because you're going to find their DNA evidence in

there, but not in that room. So is it possible, Raphael, Amanda, and Rudy are all hanging out with Meredith and just like they had kind of described about Patrick, Raphael and Amanda are maybe out on the couch and something goes wrong while Meredith and Rudy are in the room. It's possible. But this is where understanding interrogations and the balance between being aggressive and assertive and getting what you want and taking it too far

and putting someone into a position where mentally they're unable to think for themselves and they say something that's not true. And that's what you have here where you have two people who are giving statements that don't make sense, and they're interpreting that as a lie, when reality it's because, and they can't see this, they get the blinders on, they push those interrogations too far. Okay.

I want you guys, if you're watching on YouTube, to put in the comments right now, if you truly don't think that Amanda and Raphael were connected or involved with Meredith's murder at all, do you think at this point the police are still going after them and trying to make them connected based out of they genuinely thought that there could still be some chance they were based on their false confessions, or was this to save face because they'd gone so hard for them? The embarrassment. And Amanda had been dragged so badly through the media that they were like, we kind of have to die on this hill. Yeah.

Let us know in the comments. The civil implications of that as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let us know in the comments. We'll be right back. Okay, Derek.

Let's be real. We have to talk about how there's moments in life where you know therapy would help. You're thinking about it. You want to do it. But then the thought of actually finding a therapist feels so overwhelming that you just don't do it. Yeah, especially when you're already stressed or burnt out. It definitely clouds your judgment. And the last thing you want is to spend hours trying to find out who takes your insurance and who's actually accepting new patients.

That's the big thing. And they have something in burnout called demand avoidance, which is like one more thing on my plate. And the whole ice is going to crack. And that's where it's like you're stuck in this thing. You want a therapist, but you don't want to go and do the work to find one. And that's why we want to talk about Rula today. Affordable, accessible mental health care should not be this hard. And Rula is a health care provider group that's actually fixing that problem.

That's right. Rula partners with over 100 insurance plans, which means therapy is often covered. The average co-pay is about $15 per session. And depending on your plan, it can be as little as $0. Who doesn't like better than zero? I think it's great because it's very, very expensive. I know looking for a therapist, a lot of them will say, like, oh, out of network, you can, like, send it to your insurance company.

and hope to be reimbursed, but you're paying out of pocket, and that just doesn't work for a lot of people. And Rula doesn't just match you with the first available therapist and call it a day. They take your goals, your preferences, your background into account, and they're going to give you a curated list of licensed in-network therapists who actually fit what you're looking for. Yeah, they work with a network of over 15,000 therapists and psychiatrists nationwide, and there are no wait list. Appointments can be available as soon as tomorrow, which is huge when you finally decide that you're ready to take control of your mental health. I agree. Actually, I have a friend who's going through this right now, and we are using Rula, and this week they are seeing somebody, which is a relief for everybody involved. Rula also sticks with you throughout your mental health journey, from helping you find the right provider, scheduling appointments, checking in and making sure the care you're getting is actually helping you move forward. So if you're not vibing with their therapist, they'll check in and you can say, hey, he's fine or she's fine, but let's try something else, and then they will pivot with you. That's right. And that also includes therapy and medication management all through licensed professionals who are carefully screened and are monitored for quality care. Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance.

So you should go to Rula.com slash crime weekly to get started. And after you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about them. Please let them know crime weekly sent you. Once again, that's Rula, Rula, R-U-L-A dot com slash crime weekly. You deserve mental health care that works with you. not against your budgets. Okay, we're back. So by November 19th, detectives still hadn't located Rudy, so they enlisted the help of a friend he trusted.

That day, the friend managed to reach Rudy through Skype Messenger. Rudy told him he was no longer in Italy, and he was now in Germany. He admitted that he had been inside the villa, but he claimed that while he was in the bathroom, someone else attacked Meredith. When he came out, he said he had tried to help her, but she died, and the attacker fled. That's a choice. It's a choice to say that.

I mean, damn. Well, because also he's probably following this in the media. It's not like he's totally clueless to what's happening and what the police think and how hard they've been going in Amanda. So he's thinking, Amanda's my perfect fall guy. But the fact that he just put himself in the apartment during the crime is huge for investigators. Well, they have his DNA. He's got to. Yes.

But now having him say it out of his mouth, it just substantiates everything you're looking for. Now Rudy told this friend, quote, Amanda doesn't have anything to do with it, end quote. So maybe he's not seeing her as a fall guy, but which is interesting, right? Because you'd think if he was guilty of it and he said somebody else did it and he knows how hard the police are going at Amanda because it's very clear to anybody watching the papers. You'd think he'd kind of maybe say like, well, I don't know. It could have been Amanda, but he's saying Amanda doesn't have anything to do with it. No, you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that because if Amanda was there, she's the only person who can do you.

in. Well, that's what I was going to say, does it, does it now kind of suggest that maybe Amanda was involved because he's protecting her? When he could have just used her to throw her under the bus and be like, yeah, the police know it was her. That's why they're going so hard for her. And yeah, she was, she could have been there or I saw her there or she was home or something like that. Yeah, I think it's mindset. Everyone's different, how they want to approach it, their tactics, their strategies. On one hand, you could say Amanda doesn't have anything to do with it is him protecting an accomplice. On the other hand, it could be a person who was actually there as a witness and knows it wasn't Amanda. And then the third option, which is the most likely is he's saying

Amanda didn't do it because he knows who did. And it's him. All right. So I'm kind of looking at it as in Amanda's being interrogated. She throws Patrick under the bus. And as you said, she could have done that or the police viewed her as doing that to protect the real person involved, which is Rudy. So now he's, Rudy's being questioned and he's like, no, Amanda had nothing to do with it. And he could be doing it to protect her. So the friend pressed Rudy for more information and kind of explain what had happened in more detail. And Rudy said that Meredith had agreed to see him at the villa. According to him, the two began having consensual sex, but they stopped soon after. He then went into the bathroom. While he was there between 920 and 9.30 p.m., Rudy heard Meredith scream. He emphasized

repeatedly how loud the screams were saying, quote, she yelled really loudly. She yelled so loudly that if someone had been passing by, they didn't hurt it. End quote. Rudy said he rushed out of the bathroom so quickly that he didn't even stop to flush the toilet or pull his pants back up, which I feel like also means maybe he didn't clean himself up after, which now this is just a really bad. Like, it's a bad situation. He's running around the house with the pants around his ankles.

Yeah. Not great. Yeah. Like an infant that took their dirty diaper off now. So at that point, Rudy claimed he was. attacked by a young Italian man. He thought the man might have been Raphael, but he couldn't be sure because he never saw his face. The killer eventually fled and Rudy went to Meredith and saw the wound on her neck. He grabbed a towel and held it against the injury, but it was no use. Meredith

died in his arms. Rudy said this point, he was covered in blood and terrified he would be blamed for Meredith's murder, so he fled the villa as well. Yeah, good choice. Yeah. I'm being sarcastic when I say that obviously. I mean, you might be thinking that sounds viable. Like if you weren't involved in this random thing that's very unlikely to happen happens. And you walk out and she dies in your arms. You're covered in her blood. Your DNA is all over. And you're like, they're never going to believe me that this very unbelievable thing happened. Yeah. And that whole time though, someone broke in. Just while he was in the bathroom. And that small window where it went from consensual sex to you having to use the bathroom in that small window, let's say three to five minutes using the

restroom. That's when someone came in, killed her, ran back out. Three to five minutes for what Amanda saw in the toilet, probably more, you know how men are. Five or ten minutes. You know how men are. They're in the bathroom for like 20, 30, 50 minutes sometimes. Guilty. Guilty. You get, you make yourselves really at home in there. I mean, it's the only place of peace that I have in my house. Sometimes I wonder, like, what happened? Are they dead in there? Like, did they have an aneurysm? Because you hear these stories where people have an aneurysm on the toilet and you're like knocking and, no, I'm okay. I'm just on my phone. Yeah, no, this is, this is, this is Too convenient. I don't think I think everyone's doing the eye roll here. I think this is something we can all unify behind that we don't believe Rudy. Also, let's not forget that he stepped on the quilt. His blood was transmitted onto the blood from Meredith, which was on his foot was transmitted to that blanket. So not only would we have to believe that he was administering some type of aid to Meredith, but then he decided to move her body.

He, she died in his arm. So I think he's kind of suggesting he was holding her and then he laid her down, the pillow and the quilt were underneath her. Got it. Got it. So we stepped through her blood. Got it. So when Rudy was done sharing his story, detectives had his friend encouraged Rudy to meet in Milan. They could go see a lawyer together and Rudy could formally explain his side. Now, this was just a ruse to get Rudy back in Italy, but he fell for it and he agreed to meet his friend the following day. Once the plan was in place, investigators traveled to Milan hoping to arrest Rudy as soon as he crossed the border. On November 20th, Rudy boarded a train, headed back towards Milan to meet his friend. and during the trip, a ticket inspector discovered that Rudy didn't have a valid ticket.

So he was detained and a routine name check revealed an international arrest warrant. So Rudy was taken into custody and placed in a German prison. So the authorities foiled the other authorities' plans without even really knowing it. So now Rudy's in custody with law enforcement, but in Germany, not Italy. So while he's in custody, Rudy repeated a version of the same story he had told his friend. He added that he had read newspaper reports about the alleged burglary at the villa. According to Rudy, when he and Meredith entered the house, Philomena's window was not broken.

He also claimed that when he fled the scene, Meredith's bedroom door was left open. Rudy was later extradited to Italy and brought back to Perugia to face charges related to Meredith's murder. When he appeared before the judge, he gave yet another statement. Rudy said he first met Amanda at Le Sheik in early September. He claimed he saw her again about a month later at the basement. flat after being invited by the men who lived there. According to Rudy, both Amanda and Meredith were there, and he spent the evening talking with Meredith, admiring her beauty. So after that, Rudy said he only saw Amanda occasionally in passing, but continued to see Meredith around town

and in bars. Rudy told the judge that on Halloween night he attended a party at a friend's apartment, and he said a woman dressed as a vampire approached him, and he realized it was Meredith. Now, according to Rudy, the two talked, they kissed, and they agreed to meet the following. evening at 8.30 p.m., which is weird because Rudy's friends with Meredith's alleged short-term boyfriend who lives in the basement flat. So- Listen, that means nothing. Come on, Stephanie. That means nothing.

I know. I guess you're right. Yeah. I don't know. It feels really, it feels wrong. It feels shady. But it's 10 days. He's looking at it.

He's justifying going, dude, it's 10 days. That ain't nothing. Yeah, he's like that's not your boyfriend. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So Rudy said that on November 1st, he met Meredith at the villa around 830 as planned. And when he got there, Meredith was upset about missing rent money and accused Amanda of stealing it.

He said Meredith entered Amanda's room, opened a drawer in her wardrobe and said, quote, that bloody drug addict, I can't bear her anymore. End quote. Now, this is why prosecutors are later going to say that Meredith's fingerprints were found on Amanda's wardrobe. I mean, not the fact that they were girls sharing an apartment and they would sometimes probably share clothes or be in each other's rooms because Meredith's going in, opening the drawer and being like that bloody drug addict, I can't bear her anymore. It's very dramatic. So now Rudy knows about the missing money from Meredith's purse. And he's saying it's because Amanda took it.

But in reality, he probably knows about it because he took it. Yeah. Because he's a thief. Or there could be a little bit of truth to that where he's trying to meld truth from just complete fiction. where he's like, hey, I'm going to give him a little something in case they know more than I know. Maybe Amanda's already admitted to taking the money. Something like that where he's trying to throw something in there to give him credibility. Like, hey, there was a conversation that I had with Meredith about Amanda.

And that happened actually before I killed her because we were just having a reasonable conversation. Yeah. I mean, I think like giving any indication that you know these small details about the crime scene is probably not a good look for you. Well, he's already put himself there. So he's asked out. He's trying to establish that he went there and he was invited there. Yeah, that he's trying to establish that he and Meredith apparently have this very tight and intimate relationship where they're constantly meeting up and, you know, behind everybody's back. Nobody knows about it apparently.

And she's, you know, sort of talking to him like a woman would to a boyfriend like, oh, my roommate. I can't take her anymore. She's a drug addict. There's no evidence that Amanda did. I mean, yes, marijuana, but not like she's out there, you know, shooting heroin in her arms. that she needs to steal Meredith's money. So could it be true that Meredith was venting about something that's not true? We have no nothing to say 100%.

Or venting about not liking Amanda. Yeah. It's possible. I'm going to let you finish this. Can I see we have more about their interaction? I think it's important and I don't want to break it up. But I do want to come back to this whole idea that he was invited over because there may be something to that.

So Rudy said he calmed Meredith down and then the two flirted in the sitting room. They were going to have sex, but they stopped because he didn't have. a condom. I mean, I thought you said that you did start consensual sex and then you stopped. Rudy then went to the bathroom. He put on music using his iPod. And while he was there, he heard the doorbell ring, followed later by a scream. Rudy rushed out of the bathroom and saw a man slightly shorter than him with chestnut colored hair standing in Meredith's bedroom. Meredith was on the floor bleeding from her neck. Rudy said the man struck him on the hand with a knife. And Rudy responded by throwing a chair. The man then fled while saying an Italian, quote, he's black. The culprit's

been found. Let's go. End quote. Rudy then heard the sound of two people leaving the property. Now, this doesn't make sense to me because if somebody rang the doorbell, Meredith let them in, and then they start attacking Meredith. Why would they do that knowing somebody else is in the apartment? And the reason they would know somebody else is in the apartment is because the bathroom door is closed, but there's music coming out of it. Yeah. Yeah. How long do they think that person's going to be in the bathroom listening to their iPod? I don't believe him for a second. What I do find fascinating here is that he says when he walks into that room, Meredith is already on the floor, which means that quilt with his bloody footprint is underneath her. So even if he lifted

her up and held her in his arms, I guess from a biomechanical standpoint, his foot isn't going to be underneath her. It may be next to her, it may be on the side of her, but it's not going to be underneath her body. So the fact that she's already on the floor, according to him, when he walks in the room, you ask yourself the question, how did your bloody footprint, shoe print, get underneath her body if she was already there when you walked in? Yes, exactly. That, I mean, I'm sure you could, as a defense lawyer, as Rudy's defense lawyer, I'm sure you could be like, well, he stood behind her, picked her up, and then sat down beneath

her. So, yeah, you could figure out a way to make that work. You can manipulate everything, yes. Now, Rudy said he returned to Meredith, and he tried to stop the bleeding with towels, but they quickly became soaked. He described Meredith's attempt to speak, saying she uttered, quote, F, F, end quote. Rudy said he drew the letters on the wall as she was trying to get them out. So it's believed that Rudy wanted investigators to think that Meredith had been trying to say Raphael's name when she said F, like Raphael, that that's why he was saying that she was uttering these sorts of sounds.

The scary part is probably some truth to this, not the raff-wrath, but just in general some of what happened in those moments of her last breaths, what occurred there because he was clearly present for it. Rudy said Meredith then grabbed his hand as if begging him not to let her go. He said he panicked and he didn't call for help because he didn't have his phone and because he feared no one would believe him given the blood covering his hands and his clothes. According to Rudy, he left the villa around 10.30 p.m. after hearing no. noise from the basement flat. He said he tried to conceal his bloodied clothing. He returned home to wash and change. And around 11.30 p.m. went to a friend's house.

From there, he went to a few nightclubs. Returning home between 4.30 and 5 a.m., he then went out again the following night and later fled to Germany. So, like, does that make sense? You're so upset by this girl that, you know, you've been enamored with and you've been meeting her and you guys are talking and she's, you know, confiding in you, inventing to you about her roommate. She dies in your arms and you're like, I'll go home, get changed, shower, put on some cologne and my best chain and then go out to the clubs.

And then the next day I'm going to go out to, this is some Casey Anthony stuff here, man. Like that does not make sense. That would be traumatizing. And you'd be, if you were so concerned about getting out of the flat because you don't want to be caught, wouldn't you have left for Germany right away because you think you're going to be falsely accused or or maybe you're trying to, I guess, go on with life as normal, and that's why you're forcing yourself to go to the club, so people don't suspect you and you don't want to leave right after the murder because that would be suspicious. But once again, now you're thinking like a person who committed the crime, not a person who witnessed something horrific, had somebody that you knew died in your arms and you were

afraid that it was going to be pinned on you. You're thinking like somebody who's trying to get away with it, not somebody who's just like super traumatized and like, what do I do? I mean, let's really talk about, to me, the most glaring evidence that he's responsible for this and it's based on everything you just said what a person would do who's actually responsible for the crime and there's one indisputable fact that everyone agrees on that meredith's door was locked when amanda arrived he said it wasn't yeah and if you're rude and you walk into the scene and then you're fleeing the area because you feel like you could be held responsible the one thing you're not going to do on the way out is lock the door to her room that's the

person who's trying to create a bigger window of opportunity where someone else could have committed the crime after you left. That's not an innocent man. That's a guilty person trying to cover their tracks. And as we'll find out, the police weren't just so focused on Amanda and Raphael that they would just take everything Rudy said at face value and be like, yeah, that sounds reasonable. So we're going to take our last break. We'll be right back. You know what no one warns you about in adulthood? There's a lot of things. Dinner, right? It's not just a days, it never goes away. You have to do it every single night. That's right. And it doesn't care if you're tired, busy, or mentally done for the day, which most of us are. It's like, hey, figure me

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Free meals applied as a discount on your first box. New subscribers only varies by plan. So if you want that Zwilling knife, which is a $145 value, you got to go check it out now at hellofresh.com slash crime weekly 10Fm. All right, we're back. And I want to pose a question to you because you can find scenarios where a guilty party will mix fact with fiction, right? They'll tell you some truths and a bunch of lies. Yeah, you say they mostly they do that, right?

The best way to lie is to sprinkle in the truth. And we keep trying to understand how Rudy would have gained access to this apartment. Was it under friendly terms? Did he break a window? What happened here? But according to him, he was a. at the Halloween party the night before, which we do know that Meredith was there. And they had talked about getting together the next night.

You don't know if they were even at the same party. It could have been a different party. But that's something that can be cross-referenced by law enforcement. So there's probably some truth there because he knows at this point, detectives are going to look into what he's saying. So maybe that was where he interacted with Meredith. And I was joking at the beginning when we talked about this in her relationship, her 10-day relationship.

But to me, that's not that significant. it's not that serious. Is it possible that because she knew Amanda would be at work at that time, that she invited him to come over and watch a movie with nothing, like, intended behind that, like she wasn't interested in him from a physical perspective, but thought he was nice,

maybe considered a potential friendship with him, maybe something further down the road, who knows, and had invited him over to hang out platonically, just to, you know, hang out and, you know,

get to know each other a little better. Is it possible? That's how it started. In her mind, she's seeing it as something casual. He obviously has other intentions in mind. And so everything he said up to that point could be true where he's able to gain access to the apartment without any forced entry. And then during their conversations about Amanda, maybe him using the restroom, at some

point it changes where maybe they do kiss or maybe he makes an advance towards her and she doesn't reciprocate. And at that point, when he's established that, oh, I was under a different impression, this is not what I wanted, but I'm still going to get what I came here for. That's when things go south. Do you think that's possible that maybe she did invite him over, which doesn't make her responsible for what happened,

but maybe that was his little bit of a window to get into the apartment without raising too much of a red flag? In my opinion, I don't think she invited him over. I really don't. Like, I know that Meredith and Amanda had previously hung out with Meredith's boyfriend, Giacomo, and Rudy Gadei before. Like, they'd hung out together before. I think they'd gone out to a nightclub together before.

So, yeah, they would all know each other, but at the same time, if you're dating Giacomo and he's out of town, are you going to invite his friend over to your apartment? Not because you have some undying loyalty to this person you've been with for 10 days, but because you're like, hey, it's going to be pretty easy. for Giacomo to find out that I invited Rudy to my apartment and it was just me there. And that's going to look suspicious. You know, it's not something that you could get away with. Because once again, Meredith doesn't know that Amanda's not coming home from work that night.

Amanda never told Meredith, I'm going to spend the night at Raphael's. As far as Meredith knows, Amanda's at work and she's going to come home at the time she usually comes home after she does her shift. Unless Meredith just assumed Amanda would spend the night at Raphael's because that's what she had been doing a lot, but she doesn't know that for sure. I'm just trying to compute how he gets into the apartment and is, and Meredith, let's just say hypothetically, he came over there unannounced, uninvited. Does Meredith just let him inside and start to strike up a conversation and go to her room

while he's out in the main area, the main common area? I think it really, like, he had to go to the bathroom and he went over hoping to use the basement flat. No one was there because they were. all out of town. So he knocks on Meredith. So like, it's an emergency man. I'm so sorry. And they know each other enough where she's like, yeah, you know, okay, probably didn't feel great about it. But yeah, you can come in and use the bathroom. And that's when it happens. And yeah, maybe she was having some like casual conversation with him the way you would with somebody you slightly know,

because maybe, and then maybe after he used the bathroom, he was like hanging around and she, 's thinking to herself, like, you know, why isn't he leaving? Why is he still here? Why is he talking to me? But, yeah, I don't think necessarily that she, She invited him there to hang out. No, I don't. I'm not certain about that either. One thing that I'm pretty locked in on is that however it transpired, however he got inside there, there was a brief interaction, a conversation where he was able to establish some intelligence

that led him to believe he had time. I don't know how he facilitated that, but to me, that's the only explanation as to why the offender would feel comfortable staging the scene after the fact. Well, he says he left around 1030, and I believe that that timeline is true. And if he went in there, he probably asked, where's Amanda at tonight? Oh, she's working. You know, she usually gets out around 11 or whatever. So brief interaction, but something where he gathered enough information to say, hey, here's my window. And then he made sure to be out of there by the time that Amanda might be coming home. Locks the door. Yeah. So that even if Amanda comes

home, she doesn't find her till the next day, it makes sense. Yeah. It makes sense. Yeah. So even if Amanda comes home that night. Yeah, she's not going to go into her room. It's locked. She's not going to go into a room. She's locked. She's sleeping. Exactly. Yep. So she maybe leaves in the morning.

Now more of a window happens. Now there's other people who could have went in there. And then Rudy walks away free. Just personally for me, I don't see Mary with being like, hey, young man, come and spend the night with me at my apartment and hang out while my boyfriend's out. Yeah. Because it's just going to look, you know, make it look like something's going on, especially if there's nobody there with you to state. Like, no, they didn't go into the bedroom. Nothing uncouth happened.

They were just hanging out. I just, yeah, I wouldn't put myself in that position as well. It's an interesting conversation to have. Does it really matter in the scheme of like the crime itself? No, whether he was invited there or came over and put up a front. Yeah, I think it was just like, I really need to get into its emergency, man. Right, you know. Right.

And maybe that might explain why she was in her room. That's why the attack occurred in her room, not in the common area. Maybe to give him some privacy because the place wasn't that big. He says, I have to use the restroom. I'm going to get out of here. So she's like, I don't want to be around this weirdo or whatever. So they have a brief conversation established that nobody else is coming home. And he did use the other bathroom.

He used the other bathroom, not the bathroom that Meredith and Amanda shared, but the bathroom that Laura and Philomena shared. Yeah, the one in the front area. So that would be the one furthest away from Meredith's bedroom. So maybe she went to her room to be like, yeah, I don't want to hear anything coming out of there. Yeah. Like, that's going to be weird. I don't want him to feel weird.

So I'm going to go in my bedroom. Hoping he's going to leave when he's done. Hoping he just leaves. And then he doesn't. And then nothing leads to another. Yeah. Yeah. So the prosecutor, Juliano McNini,

and the other investigators did not believe most of Rudy's account. They didn't believe Meredith had agreed to meet Rudy or that she wanted to have sex with him. There was also no sign that a chair had been thrown and no trace of the letters A-F on the wall. They did not believe Meredith had spoken those letters or that Rudy had attempted to write them. Detectives examined the rest of Rudy's claims and were able to prove that many of them were false. For example, they determined there was no way Rudy met Meredith on Halloween night. she was with friends that entire evening, nowhere near the party that Rudy said he was at. Well, apparently he's not as smart as I thought he was, right?

Because that's something he would be able to establish and boom, there they are. Yeah, because he's trying to make it seem like we have a history together. Of course, you know, she was safe with me. Her friends also said that Meredith had never mentioned Rudy and that they'd never seen him around her. She'd been dating one of the guys in the basement and she really liked him. However, one part of Rudy's account did appear to be accurate. He said he fled the villa around 10.30 p.m. and two witnesses actually said, supported that timeline. A couple told police they were walking toward the town center,

Piazza Grimana, between 1030 and 1040 p.m. when a black man running down the stairs away from the villa collided violently with the woman's boyfriend. They described him as young, well-built, but not tall, wearing a heavy jacket. He did not stop or apologize and kept running. Investigators believed this description matched Rudy. I don't know if this couple was like this guy was covered in blood, because Rudy would have been, but They think that this description matched Rudy. So there was one other point investigators believed to be true. They suspected that Amanda had taken Meredith's rent money.

They believed $215 euros they found on Amanda when she was taken into custody belonged to Meredith. Damn, Amanda. So at that point, investigators were convinced that Amanda, Rudy, and Raphael were all involved in Meredith's murder. But there was a serious flaw in that theory. There were no phone records showing that Amanda and Raphael had ever communicated with Rudy Gideh. Even so, detectives continued pressing forward. They kept interviewing witnesses, hoping to uncover further evidence that would contradict Amanda and Raphael's accounts of November 1st. Now, two witnesses did eventually place Amanda and Raphael in locations they said they had not been.

The first was a homeless man named Antonio, who slept on a bench in Piazza Grimana. Antonio told police that on the night of November 1st, sometime between 11 p.m. and midnight, he saw Amanda and Raphael sitting on a low wall near the basketball court closest to the villa. He said the two were talking, hugging, and kissing. From time to time, one of them would stand up, walk a short distance to the railing, and look toward the gate of the villa. Antonio said they left shortly before midnight walking down the staircase that leads towards the villa's gate across the street.

He said he remained in the square for a short time afterwards before leaving himself. Now, it should be noted that on November 2nd, after Meredith's body was discovered, Antonio had been asked by detectives whether he'd seen anything unusual the night before, and he said no. It was only days later after seeing photographs of Amanda and Raphael that he came forward and said he recognized them as the couple he'd seen in the square. And so prosecutors took Antonio's statement as truth and would later use it to try and disprove Amanda and Raphael's timeline. Here's what I'm thinking. One of two things happened here. One, when the police asked Antonio, know, did you see anything suspicious? He's like, no. Because, I mean, technically, if you,

if you saw a couple doing this, would you initially think it was suspicious, that they're just sitting there talking and hugging and then sometimes they're looking, you know, in a certain direction? Maybe they're just waiting for someone. That wouldn't stand out at first as being suspicious. Second, the police really, really, really, really wanted Amanda and Raphael to be connected, and they really wanted to be able to prove this. And we're talking about a person who is unhomed at this time. Could it be that maybe a police officer slipped him some money and was like,

maybe just say you saw this at this time. Yeah. You didn't see a couple in the square looking towards the gate of this villa over here? Like, are you sure? So that's possible. Like, I'm not going to rule it out that there was some shady stuff happening on the behalf of the police

after they realized, hey, we've been like going hard on these two. The media's destroyed them. They're sitting in prison. Yeah, our careers are on the line here. Yeah, we found this guy where everything says it's him. We don't even believe anything he's saying, but we really can't, we can't make it seem like we didn't have any reason to doubt these people, these two people. So, yeah.

Now, there was a similar situation with another witness named Marco, who owned a supermarket near the university. In the days immediately following Meredith's murder, detectives showed him photographs of Amanda and Raphael. And at that time, he said he recognized them but did not provide any additional information. Later, after Amanda's arrest, Marco contacted police again and said he believed he had seen Amanda in his store early on the morning of November 2nd, though he admitted he could not be certain because she'd been wearing a scarf and a hat. Marco said she appeared very pale and kept glancing around as if she was trying to hide. She then went back towards the back of the shop where the cleaning supplies and detergents, including the bleach, were kept.

Marco said he could not remember whether she'd purchased anything, but he did recall that when she left, she turned. right towards Piazza Grimana. I don't really put any stock into this. It could have been someone else. He could have just been thinking, you know, once she got arrested and the police were going so hard, Marco's like, wow, this Foxy-Noxy, horrible American girl did this to her roommate. And maybe he's kind of like piecing random things together in his head to make this statement thinking he's helping.

But in reality, he's not. I don't put a lot of stock in this statement. Yeah, you know how I feel about witness statements. They could be everything. They could be nothing. And sometimes it's people trying to do the right things and they just get it wrong. So I'm with you. You always got to approach this information with some skepticism because just because they want to do the right thing doesn't mean they're right.

And it also doesn't mean that they're like just being nefarious. But they're trying to help. And I mean, oh, I saw a girl. Trying to help the best they can. Yeah, I saw a girl in my store that looked like Amanda. It's like it could have been any girl. That's right. Now, despite the fact that Marco couldn't be 100% sure, the one.

and he saw November 2nd was Amanda. Investigators took his statement as evidence that Amanda had gone to the store and purchased bleach, which they alleged she took back to Raphael's to clean up. So I guess I don't really know why they'd have to clean up Raphael's apartment all that much if the crime scene was at Meredith and Amanda's flat. And I'm not sure why you would use bleach to like clean yourself. Maybe. I don't know if you'd want to put bleach on your skin.

All you'd really have to do is shower. But maybe like clean the shower afterwards, things like that. However, is Amanda, like at 20 not really knowing about forensics and police investigations going to have this presence of mind? I don't know. Now, detectives also pointed to two additional witness accounts they believed supported their theory of three people being involved. There is a woman named Nara who lived across the parking area from the villa. She told police she'd heard, quote, a big scream, a chilling scream, end quote, at around 11.30 p.m. on the night of the murder, which does not match up with Rudy's timeline. She also reported hearing the sound of three people running away shortly afterward,

but she didn't call the police and went back to bed. I don't know how you can tell just from hearing that there's three people running away, but okay. Another woman, Antonella, lived on a street parallel to Nara's, and she told investigators that on November 1st she went to bed at exactly 10 p.m., a time she remembered clearly because she checked her watch. She later woke up, estimating the time to be around 11 p.m. to the sound of a man and a woman arguing loudly in.

Italian. She said their voices were agitated, though she couldn't make out what they were saying. The voices grew louder, followed by a woman's scream. Alarmed, Antonella opened her window and looked outside. She didn't see anyone, but when she looked towards the villa, she believed the sounds had come from there. She closed the window and eventually went back to sleep, never calling the police. Once again, this does not match Rudy's timeline. The scream happening at 1130 or a little after 11. I think this is a case of people. hearing normal things that you hear in a city where people are out and about, hearing people arguing in Italian. Amanda didn't even really speak Italian that well. And I feel like an Italian speaker

would have been able to identify, even if they were arguing in Italian, one of the people arguing was not a native Italian speaker. They would be able to tell that. So you could have just heard a couple having an argument outside. And now after you hear the news about the murder, you think it's connected because of where you're located. There could have been a scream. Like, let's say, let's say there was a woman outside. Could have been just completely unrelated. Yeah, she like fell or something or, you know, or somebody was chasing her and they were playing and she screamed or it was a couple having a fight and, you know, they were just being dramatic.

It could have been completely unrelated. Right. And the witnesses trying to help. They're trying to help. They don't know for certain they could be operating from a place of, you know, good faith where they want to be part of the solution, not the problem. Thinking it must have been connected. Right.

But in reality, they don't understand the dynamic. of this particular case and how law enforcement could use that to build their narrative. I would a trusted, you know, person in the community who's supposed to be solving crimes, use your narrative to set someone up. Of course. They're not going to. So, you know, you're just trying to tell them what you know and not anything extra. And it's used against the wrong people.

So as investigators continued building their case against Rudy, Amanda and Raphael, the villa was searched again. Now, Amanda's attorneys were present for this search. and they sat with prosecutor Giuliano Magnini inside a van watching the process unfold on a video monitor. They later told author John Follion that what they saw shocked them. Meredith's mattress was no longer in her bedroom. It had been propped on its side in the kitchen. And in Meredith's room, her clothes were crumbled on her bed frame. Both doors of her wardrobe had been dismantled and were leaning against a wall.

The pillow that had been found beneath Meredith's body, the one with the bloody palm print, attributed to Rudy, that had been stuffed inside the wardrobe. The attorneys objected immediately to what they were seeing because this is not the same crime scene that existed when this happened. But according to them, Giuliano Magnini responded by saying that this was normal. Detectives were notorious for leaving crime scenes in disarray once forensic police had completed their work.

And that's not necessarily, I guess, inaccurate, right? If the forensic people have already gone through, collected the evidence, taken the photos, is there a, and it's been kind of, you know, a little while at this point, is there an urgent need to sort of preserve the crime scene exactly as it was after that? No. So once the forensics team is done, you make sure that even before the forensics team goes in there, by the way, you take photo and video documentation, photos of every angle, anything close up you want, and then an actual video as well with no sound through the entire crime scene so that if by chance you want, you want. to double check a photo that was taken, you can reference that video. But once the crime scene team, the texts are done and the forensics have been collected, it's our job to go through that crime scene and really dismantle it and break it down

and try to see or find anything that wasn't observed during the initial examination, during the initial search. Could be a knife under the mattress. Could be a million things. Something that might lead you to the person responsible. So no, it is very normal to do that. and it is also normal after you go through the apartment or after you go through the crime scene not to put everything back the way it was before you did it.

It's just not a common practice. Because you got to search for stuff. So you got to pull the mattress up and see if there's something underneath that you missed before. Yeah. You might put the mattress back, but if I move a lamp, am I going to put it in the exact spot and an exact angle? Maybe I should, but I would be a hypocrite if I said I did. I'm a little surprised that the pillow with the palm print wasn't like in an evidence bag in evidence.

I agree. Yeah, that's a little odd. I definitely don't understand that methodology why you wouldn't take that. So as investigators researched Meredith's room, they located a clasp from her bra, the same bra whose strap had been cut with a knife. The clasp had actually been spotted during the initial search on November 2nd underneath the pillow that was placed beneath Meredith's body, but it was not collected at the time and it was left on the floor.

During the second search, the clasp was found again, this time under a rug near the desk. When it was recovered, it was picked up using gloved hands that had to be. touched other things in the house rather than a sterile instrument, which raised concerns about potential cross-contamination. The clasp was sent for testing, and Raphael's DNA was identified on it. Now, this is going to happen multiple times, just like with the knife. You know, later, after Raphael and Amanda would be acquitted, it was determined, oh, hey, actually Raphael's DNA wasn't on the clasp. It was cross-contamination. Was it cross-contamination or was it planted? That's what I want to know at this point, Because how do you have cross-contamination from some gloves?

You know, you just happened to touch something else in the flat that had Raphael's DNA on it. And then you just happened to touch the braclas but that you just happened to not get on November 2nd. And now you're collecting it and now you're testing it. And now it just happens to have Raphael's DNA on it. Yeah. I mean, it's that I might as say that's not possible based on the slippery slope we're on right now. What do you think is more possible? I honestly don't know.

Cross-contamination or you planted that? I'm so sorry, but... Well, I mean, I'll tell you this. I won't speak to this specific case, but in my experience, I've had more cases of cross-contamination unintentionally than I've had planting of evidence, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen here.

I'm not in a position where I can say it didn't happen. And this was on video, was it not when the buckle was found? Yeah, the classroom. But they could have been, you're saying your argument would be that was planted before the video started. My, yes, my argument would be since it's been there since November 2nd.

Right. Could have been planted at any point. How are the gloves you're wearing on this later search? How did they get Raphael's DNA on them to be transmitted to that part of the bra that you just didn't, you so happened to not collect on November 2nd? So yeah, I think it's possible knowing the search was going to happen that Giuliano McNini and his cronies were like, hey, you know, let's just kind of, you know, stack the odds in our favor a little bit here. Once again, so we don't look like the absolute fools we have been.

Yeah. But they're even fools, even if it's just cross-contamination. Yeah, but it's going to be after they're acquitted that this information's revealed. And most likely not because they wanted it to be revealed. No, and I mean the bra buckle and the cutting of the bra was something that we covered very early in this. But that's also something that discredits Rudy's account of what happened and this being consensual. Yeah, because you cut her bra. That's clearly an indication of a sexual assault.

You cut her bra and her bra was caught with a knife that you just happened to carry around with you all the time. These are the little details that in the moment he forgot would be very conflicting compared to what he's alleging. So, yeah, this was a consensual encounter. And yet her bra was cut by this unknown person who came in to kill her, but then also in the process, not having time to sexually assault her because there's no DNA evidence to support that they cut her bra for some random reason. Yeah, because according to Rudy, you already started the sexual encounter. Her bra is already off. And his DNA was found in her vaginal canal. Yeah, exactly.

What use would the attackers who have? like what, 10 minutes because you're on the bathroom? What use are they going to have to come in and start cutting her bra off and stuff? Yeah, yeah. That's something that we have right there, black and white. So he's just digging himself a deeper hole. So Raphael, he hears, right? Your DNA's found out Meredith's Bra.

Yeah, not good. He continued to maintain. He's like, I'm innocent. I never touched Meredith's bra. I've never even been inside her bedroom. And once again, according to a lot of that evidence that we first were going through, his fingerprints were found on the outside of her door, not anywhere inside her room. So the positive results, he said they had to be from cross-contamination, as feared by Amanda's

attorneys. Both Raphael's attorneys and Amanda's attorneys were convinced of their client's innocence and continued to fling motions, pushing for the charges to be dropped and for their clients to be released from prison. They believed the growing amount of evidence pointed to Rudy. Plus, combined with the problem of surrounding evidence collection involving Amanda and Raphael, that should have led to their release. So they also raised concerns about prosecutor McNini himself, who was under indictment in an unrelated case for a series of alleged crimes, including abuse of office, obstruction of justice, and illegally wiretapping journalists. They questioned how he was permitted to continue prosecuting cases at all by that point,

but none of their efforts worked. Raphael and Amanda were ordered to stay behind bars. Once again, Giovanni McNini. I don't want to be like, this guy's bad, he's a bad guy, but just factually, factually, he'd later be found guilty of abuse of office, and he would be sentenced to 16 months in prison. Of course, that conviction was overturned on appeal because the system is very kind of wired to protect the, sorts of people. Once again, I think it's a reputation and an image thing. The very system, which convicted him, was also the system that he swore to uphold. So they go hand-in-hand, that law and order, right? And the law part isn't going to want to really acknowledge that the

order part is out of line or doing something that they shouldn't be, because then it kind of implicates the law part of potentially also being a little corrupt and not always doing the right thing. So in early 2008 prosecutor, Giuliano McNini, went back to Rudy to obtain yet another statement. And much of what Rudy said echoed his earlier accounts, but this time he added new details about what he claimed happened while he was in the bathroom and what followed afterward. Rudy said that while he was using the bathroom,

he heard the doorbell ring. He then heard Meredith call out, Who is it? Meredith next spoke in English in what he described as a tense tone of voice saying, we need to talk. Rudy heard a woman's voice, which he believed was Amanda's, and that voice asked, what's happening? So now Rudy is, well, maybe Amanda was there.

I said, I know, I said before she had nothing to do with this. But I'm changing my mind. She could have. Rudy said he did not pay attention to what was said next, even though I'm sorry. I don't care who you are or what you're doing. You hear someone come in. You hear Meredith like, we need to talk. And then the voice is like, why, what's going on?

You're going to listen. You're going to get the tea. You're going to figure out. Because especially Meredith's been telling you how mad she is at Amanda and Amanda stole her money. You're going to be like, oh my God, shit. Amanda come home and now Meredith's about to, you know, like confront her about the stolen money, you're going to want to hear what's happening next. I'm sorry. So anyways, Rudy said he didn't pay attention to what was said next. Instead, he took his headphones out of his pocket. He put them on

and listened to the music at a high volume. You know, he was just super respectful. He's like, let me give them their privacy. I have no desire to know all the gossip and what's happening out there. He said that partway through the third song, he heard a scream and he rushed out of of the bathroom without stopping to flush the toilet. According to Rudy, the light in the sitting room was off, but the light in Meredith's bedroom was on still. So he said he saw a man standing with his back to him near Meredith's room. Rudy did not see anyone else inside the flat. He then looked into the bedroom and saw Meredith lying on the floor. At that point, the man turned and Rudy saw a knife in his left hand. Rudy described the man as white, slightly shorter than him, and roughly the same age.

He said the man had sharp cheekbones and a slight double chin. According to Rudy, the man lunged at him with a knife striking toward his hands. Rudy said he raised his right hand to protect himself, then grabbed a chair and threw it at the attacker who ran out of the villa. Yeah. So, I mean, adding details, not great, especially details this specific. Like I heard Meredith say, who is it? And then I heard her say, we need to talk. And I heard a woman respond.

You didn't remember that at first? This seems pretty important. We'll just add that to the list of things that didn't happen. Yeah. So as the man fled, Rudy claimed he heard him speak in Italian. Apparently to someone else saying, quote, he's black. I found a black guy. I found the culprit.

Let's go. End quote. Rudy said he then heard more than one person moving away outside. He claimed that he looked out the window and he recognized Amanda running away. Rudy said he returned Meredith and repeated his earlier account of trying to stop the bleeding with towels and that he heard her say F. He then placed a pillow on the floor. so he could kneel beside her. She soon died in his arms.

After that, Rudy said he panicked, ran back to his home, and fled Italy the following day. Now, Rudy's definitely trying to say, now the man he saw was Raphael, and the woman who's with him was Amanda Knox. Giuliano McNini still did not believe Rudy's account. His theory at this point was that when Meredith returned home

from spending time with friends on November 1st, Amanda was already there. Not long afterward, Amanda let both Raphael and Rudy into the villa so they could play a sex game. game. Juliano McNini is focused on this sex game. I don't know if it was his, he was very religious, very Catholic. So maybe there was some like sex shame there happening or if it's because they made such a big deal out of this being sex related and sex centered in the beginning that now he has to find a way to bring it back there. But Magnini never wanted to let go up the sex game thing.

And I don't understand where it even came from. Who plays sex games that end in people being like having their throats slit and being stabbed multiple times. So then Juliano McNini said in his theory, they come to play the sex game, but Meredith was tired and she wanted to go to bed and she got angry with Amanda for bringing two men into the flat so late. And then Meredith and Amanda argued. Later that evening, Amanda asked Rudy to soften up Meredith and prepare her for a, quote, erotic game by sexually assaulting her while Amanda, quote, dedicated herself to Raphael.

But Meredith resisted so forcefully that Rudy, Amanda, and Raphael became enraged. As Meredith screamed, all three threatened her with the knife from Raphael's flat. McNini believed they restrained her, cutting her several times, and at one point seized her by the neck and tried to strangle her. All without leaving any of their DNA on her, right? all without leaving any of their DNA or fingerprints anywhere in her room or on her. Right. You would imagine this would have occurred in the common area at first and yet no sign of a struggle whatsoever out there. Even if it occurred in her in her room, right?

Are they all hanging out in her little room? Well, no, they would have brought her in there because remember Amanda told Rudy to soften Meredith up and Amanda was going to focus on Raphael so we'd assume Rudy went into Meredith's room and then Meredith's resisting. So Amanda and Raphael are so mad at this, that she's not allowing her to be raped, that they go in to help Rudy. And all of this is happening, but they're not leaving their fingerprints anywhere in her room. They're not leaving their DNA anywhere in her room, even though Rudy's DNA was all over that place. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Like, the fact that it came from an actual law enforcement professional, I don't know. Like,

I don't know if I can ever believe anything that they say. Like, this is the dumbest theory I've ever heard. Do you agree? I don't have a problem with exploring theories. But if there's no evidence to support it, then you got to rule it out. And just like you look for inculpatory evidence, you also look for exculpatory evidence. And there's no evidence here to support the theory that they're proclaiming. So that's where I lose respect for it. And the person saying this is what happened, it's all speculation. There's nothing to support it. Yeah, there's nothing to support it. The only thing you have is there is their statements where they're conflicting. That's it. Yeah, theory usually has to come from somewhere and he's created this elaborate like almost like pornographic sort of like what is what is

Juliano McNini doing in his free time where he's got this kind of creativity in his head to make these things up if there were people who had come forward and said listen I had been involved in these type of sexual activities with Amanda and Raphael last this was something they dabbled in you know Meredith had told me about it before that they would come back to the apartment and They would engage in this type of behavior in the past. Sure. Sure. Now you're starting to build a little bit of a pattern of behavior.

But there's nothing with how public this case was. This would have basically been the first time they've ever done this if it happened. It's just there's nothing here to support it. No DNA. No witness testimony. Zero. They've got Amanda's diary at this point. If she's writing in her diary, assuming like we do when we write in diaries,

then nobody's ever going to see what we're writing. Has she ever historically written about like, oh, yes, me. I love these second. games where I try to force men to have sex with women and I help them hold them down. No, there's nothing. It's ridiculous. Rudy, according to Giuliano McNini's theory, Rudy then attempted to rape Meredith as Raphael tried to restrain Meredith by holding her right arm while Amanda stood in front of

Meredith and pricked her neck with the kitchen knife. Because remember, Giuliano's like, yeah, the way that Meredith was, you know, like stabbed and pricked with this knife, like a woman would do that. That's something a woman does. So Meredith tried to push the blade away with her right hand, which is how she got the cut on her palm. And McNini believed Amanda then plunged the knife into Meredith's neck. So now Giuliano McNini's theory has Amanda front and center as the one killing,

killing Meredith, even though Rudy's the one that he's admitting and acknowledging and the evidence supports raped her. Yeah. Again, goes back to nice theory. Got to investigate it. but nothing to support it. I don't think you would have to investigate. You investigate every theory.

That would be the problem for an investigator that they didn't do it. You have to investigate every possibility. The fact that there's some conflicting statements in there, the fact that there's some weird behavior with their cell phones and the laptop activity, it's enough to look into it, but it should be quickly ruled out. It's enough to look into them. Maybe they were there. But this whole thing, unless Rudy says, oh, yeah, we played a sex game and this is what happened.

And now you have this statement. that could be true or not true. Now you investigate that, but you got this like this prosecuting attorney who's some weird erotic fan fiction writer and you're investigating a theory that's not possibly true in any way, shape, or form, and I think it's dumb. And the fact that he said this out loud, I don't, yeah, that's bad. I'm embarrassed for him. So at some point, Meredith was either dragged or she dragged herself roughly a yard towards

the bed where she ended up on her back. After she died, her body was then covered with the quilt. McNini considered the quilt a crucial piece of evidence. He believed it pointed more strongly to Amanda's involvement than to that of Raphael or Rudy because, quote, she as a woman couldn't bear Meredith's naked mangled female corpse, end quote. So I think it's safe to say, listen, I don't like throwing out terms, but I think it's safe to say Giuliano McNini was kind of misogynistic, right? didn't really like women or respect women or kind of saw them in a certain one-dimensional way, as in women do this, women do that, women don't do this, and would sort of like put that template over every woman that he encountered because there's tons and tons of evidence that

male rapists will cover the woman up afterwards. Especially if they're trying to buy time, hoping that when someone comes into her room, they just think she's sleeping. There's also a psychological shame aspect of it of like, what have I done? What have I done? Like, I'm covering it from myself, from my own eyes. So according to McNini, Amanda, Raphael, and Rudy then took Meredith's two cell phones and at least 250 euros before fleeing the villa. Rudy went home, washed himself up, later went to the nightclub. McNini believed that Amanda and Raphael returned to the villa after Rudy left to destroy evidence. He theorized that the couple cleaned the scene, pointing to the fact that only one of Amanda's fingerprints was found in the house, something he considered implausible given that she lived there. The following morning, Amanda and Raphael staged the burglary before calling the police. So they went back to stage the burglary after Rudy left.

In June of 2008, McNini formally concluded the investigation into Meredith's murder and issued a decree informing Amanda, Raphael, and Rudy that the murder charges against them would remain in place and that they would be facing life in prison. So Amanda was additionally charged with slandering Patrick, which could bring a maximum sentence of 20 years. Now, a few months later in September, Rudy's attorneys requested a fast-track trial. Under that process, Rudy's case would be heard immediately in a bench trial with a judge rather than a jury, and that would decide his guilt or his innocence. Now, what makes the fast-track trial so unusual is that the prosecution would not only argue Rudy's guilt, but would also use the trial to push for Amanda and Raphael, to be sent to trial as well.

So at the end of the proceedings, the judge would roll on both issues. Now, over the course of the next several weeks, McNini presented his detailed and graphic account of what he claimed happened to Meredith, his fan fiction, insisting that all three defendants, Rudy, Amanda, and Raphael were responsible. The prosecution asked that Rudy be convicted and sentenced to life in prison, and that Amanda and Raphael be ordered to stand to trial for the murder of Meredith. So on October 28th, the judge found Rudy guilty of sexually assaulting and murdering Meredith and they sentenced him to 30 years in prison. He was acquitted of the theft charge. I'm not sure

why. If you're found guilty of raping and murdering a woman, you're only getting 30 years in prison. Like, can you please make that make sense? I don't. That doesn't make any sense. Especially because the prosecution asked him to be sentenced to life in prison. What the hell's going on here? It might have been the max. I don't know even know how it would be maximum sense. How does that happen? I don't know. I really don't know. The judge also stated that he agreed with the prosecution's theory that Meredith's murder involved multiple attackers. And on that basis, he ruled that Amanda and Raphael would go to trial as well. And obviously, as you can understand, both of them were stunned by this decision. They've got the

person who has already been found guilty of killing Meredith. They've got him. He's been sentenced. And now they're still on the line. They believed that a judge would recognize their innocence and end the case there. And so I guess it makes sense because the judge seems to be an idiot as well or there's some sort of more elaborate scheme behind the scenes because you only gave Rudy 30 years. There's got to be something with that.

And I'm sure someone in the comments is going to say it's obviously I'm not familiar with the law over there, but there's got to be a reason for the 30 years. It can't be because that's what they felt it warranted. There's more to that story. 30 years is too much of a round number. there's a reason for that. Although you're saying prosecutors requested life in prison. So I don't know, I don't know what the ruling was on sentencing that led to 30 years, but there's got to be something.

I don't, I don't understand it. Besides, like, is there something going on behind the scenes? Right. It could be, it could have been a deal. But then again, if the prosecutors are asking for life, did they change up where they expect Rudy to testify against Amanda and Raphael, and they gave him 30 in exchange? That could be possible. Yeah, so are they like, hey, you know, if you say what we want you to say at their trial, then you're going to get off easy. Right. That's problematic.

So obviously, this judge did not see that Raphael and Amanda were, you know, not involved. They were basically scheduled for a trial, which was referred to as Italy's trial of the century. And it was scheduled to begin just a few months later in January of 2009. This trial was crazy. So, you know, what happened to that trial? everything that followed. We are going to talk about that in the next and final part of this series, but we're not done because we still have the whole trial. And once again, it's very interesting. There's a very interesting case and how Italy's legal system works as far as this specific case is

very interesting. I still don't understand why once Rudy's role in Meredith's murder and assault became very clear, like undeniably clear. The Italian police still wanted to make sure that Amanda and Raphael went down with him. I don't get it. I think it's very clear why that is. You think it's just ego, right? I mean, I wouldn't use the word ego.

I think it's what it is is there were literal jobs on the line here, right? They came out publicly and accused these two people of committing murder. They were very sure about that. And they were locked in. That's the way they were going. And then out of nowhere,

unexpectedly, they get these DNA results that do not align with their theory. And very quickly, they realize that this other guy is responsible for this crime. And they're like, what do we do now? Because this is bad for us. This is bad for our careers. This is going to have a lot of people getting fired. And so we have to find a way to get the right guy, but also find a way that it still works with what we originally thought so we don't look like complete morons.

So instead of it being Rudy, it's going to be Rudy, Amanda, and Raphael. So we're still technically right. We were on the right track. We just didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle. So this is a way of saving face. Yeah, ego for some, I'm sure, but also for others, just a self-preservation option because they didn't want to find themselves unemployed, honestly. Now, if we're saying, Rudy, wrong in every sense of the word.

That's not abundantly clear. And we're saying Rudy was sentenced to 30 years in prison based on when this happened. He should technically still be in prison, right? Right. But he's not. Yeah, that's ridiculous. Because his sentence, his sentence would be reduced to 16 years. His sentence would be reduced to 16 years and he would only serve 13 of that.

Right. And I think part of that, we'll save it for next episode. This is a long one. But it's because this investigation was conducted so poorly. Right. It wasn't, even though Rudy put himself there, he never admitted to killing her. He said he was a victim in all of this just as much as her in some ways. And because investigators were so focused on the wrong people.

They didn't really put a lot of time into building the case against him. Yeah. And so now it's like, well, is this the truth? Did this happen? You know, it opens that small window. If they were wrong about her, could they have been wrong about him? If they were wrong about Raphael and Amanda could happen. Yeah.

And so the case is not strong against anyone. And that's why everyone's getting a deal. And as far as Amanda and Raphael, we'll save most of it for the end, but it's starting to make more sense to me where it's not right, but because of the conditions they were under and their inconsistent statements, regardless of how they were obtained, we'll just put that aside for a second. We've already talked about that at length. There was an opportunity to say, yeah, they're still somehow involved, right? And that's unfortunate because there's nothing forensically that ties them to it. I'm completely ruling out the buckle. I'm not even considering it.

It's definitely at minimum cross-contamination, if not just completely planted evidence. So, yeah, there's nothing here really, and it's unfortunate that Amanda and Raphael is still being dragged to the mud. But because the investigation was conducted so poorly, I can also see why some people in our comments and just in the public in general still believe to this day that Amanda and or Raphael committed this crime because the case was so botched. So it's all starting to make sense to me now, how we got to where we are right now, which is always my goal with Crime Weekly, is to understand why we are in this environment now talking about this case in this manner. When you start the episode, when you start the series, I'm like, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

But here we are after four episodes with a two and a half hour episode in the books, now it's starting to be clear what happened here. Absolutely. And it all goes back to law enforcement and how bad they screwed this case up. Yeah. Wow. Well, there we go. Any final words from you before we wrap it out? It was a long one tonight.

But we did have that opening where we were talking about interrogation. So we're a little under two hours. But overall, great episode. And we had talked about Rudy last episode. Now we see how he ties into all of this. And we'll go through the trial, which I know there's some crazy stuff with that as well. It's not as like clear cut as most cases are. So that's really it.

right back next week back next week and then and then after that we are going to have another another series starting that i'm actually very interested in i'm i'm now currently researching and outlining it and uh yeah i'm excited to bring that one to you guys as well so we'll we'll keep moving on keep pushing on we'll keep going on i'm really i'm just like stunned that that rudy only served 13 years for what happened to meredith that's crazy to me. Like, I can't, I'm kind of trying to get over that and I don't think I can. Well, it's, it's the judicial system, but it's also the investigation, right? It's the foundation of the charges, right? Like, what, what he's in prison for is important, but also how they got

there is equally important. And the evidence, although strong, because of how just all over the place it is and other people being involved and who was really at fall, who stabbed her, like, they can't tell you to this day, you know, with evidence who did it. We, we know who did it. We know who did it. If I'm a judge and I'm like, okay, I could see how more than one person was involved. And then I read Juliano Magnini's like theory about how it went down. I'd be like, are you serious? What are you smoking? Now I don't believe anything you say. What's wrong with you? And that would have been it for me. And this judge was like, hmm, this sounds plausible. Like are they watching the same Italian soap opera? What's going on here? So yeah, we'll come back next week. We'll go over it. One more. One more to go, guys.

One more to go. I hope we're getting there, as always, in the comments. We know there are who have been fascinated with this case for many years and are very passionate about it. Keep coming in the comments. Let us know what you think. I hope I clarified some of the interrogation side of things. Although in this particular case, 99% of what I said is not applicable. That's the whole point. It's more in generality.

I mean, it's just going through the investigation. Right. It's going through the process. And we're going to continue to go through it next week. Until then, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon. Bye. You know,