by Amanda Knox
It turned out there was another possible explanation.
On December 18, forty-six days after the Polizia Scientifica first swept the villa for evidence, the Rome-based forensic police returned to No. 7, Via della Pergola.
Luciano and one of Raffaele’s lawyers watched a live feed of the search from a van parked outside the villa. The investigators were dressed in white suits, shoe coverings, and gloves to protect the crime scene from contamination—but it was too late for that. The Squadra Mobile, or “Flying Squad,” had already ransacked the house, tramping from room to room. While looking for Meredith’s credit cards, keys, and other nonforensic clues, they’d dragged Meredith’s mattress into the kitchen. Her unhinged armoire doors were on the floor. Her clothes were in heaps. The forensic team found the bra clasp under a rolled-up carpet, lying beneath a sock.
I wasn’t implicated by the clasp, but I knew that the prosecution would never believe that Raffaele had acted without me. They’d say I gave him access to the villa. I was the reason he’d met Meredith. We were each other’s alibis. If they could show that Raffaele was directly connected to the crime, I would, at the very least, be charged as his accomplice.
The bra clasp wasn’t the only incriminating news the prosecution leaked to the press that day. “CSI Technique Leads Italian Police to Bloody Footprint in Foxy Knoxy’s Bedroom,” the London Daily Mail wrote. The article quoted Edgardo Giobbi, an investigator for the police, who said, “This is a crucial discovery and very important.”
Luciano told me the low points. “They say your feet were ‘dripping with blood’—that you tracked blood while you were trying to clean it up.”
The forensic team used luminol, a chemical that glows blue when sprayed on even trace amounts of hemoglobin. It revealed two footprints in the hallway outside the bathroom and one in my bedroom.
“How can they say I had Meredith’s blood on the bottoms of my feet?” I asked.
“Please don’t worry, Amanda,” Carlo said, giving me a sympathetic look. “I’m sure it’s not as simple and straightforward as the media are portraying it. We’ve already spoken with our experts, and they say that you might have stepped on the blood splotch on the bathmat and tracked it down the hall. That could do it. And it’s not just blood that shows up in luminol. It reacts the same to household cleaners, soil, juice, and rust from the faucet—anything that contains iron or peroxides. To know for sure what they’re looking at, forensic scientists have to test separately with another chemical”—tetramethylbenzidine (TMB)—“that’s sensitive only to human blood.”
“Well, did they?” I asked anxiously.
“It’s frustrating, but we’ll have to wait until the investigation phase ends so we can see how the Polizia Scientifica reached their conclusions,” Carlo answered.
Perhaps it was better that we didn’t know then it would be twenty-two nerve-rattling months before we found out how the forensic scientists had made this misleading call.
This new claim was another barricade separating me from my real life—one more accusation on a growing list. Too many impossible things were being served up as “truth”—Meredith’s DNA on Raffaele’s kitchen knife, Raffaele’s DNA on Meredith’s bra clasp, and now Meredith’s blood on the soles of my feet.
It was crazy enough to be told that “investigative instinct” had convinced the police I was involved in Meredith’s murder—that I was dangerous and evil. Now forensic science—the supposedly foolproof tests I was counting on to clear me—was turning up findings I knew were wrong. I, like most people who get their information from TV crime shows, was unaware that forensic evidence has to be interpreted, that human error and bias can, and do, upend results.
“I don’t get it,” I told my dad at his next visit. “How can this be happening? Raffaele and I weren’t there, so how can there be any evidence pointing to us?”
I felt so weighed down, so helpless and sad, that all I could do was cry while Dad held me. “Are the police just really bad at their jobs?” I wailed. “They’re getting further and further away from the truth. How can the investigators make three incriminating errors in a row? What will they find next?”
But I tried not to think too far ahead. I’d already had to tell Mom good-bye. She’s an elementary school teacher who had used all her vacation and sick days to be with me. My defense was costing far more than my parents had. She had to get back to work. Thank God Dad was there for me. I couldn’t fathom how I would get through this without my parents.
Incensed by the stream of falsehoods, I concluded what my lawyers and my dad already knew: the police and the prosecutor couldn’t afford to admit they’d made a mistake. They’d announced, “Case closed,” at the press conference the day Raffaele and I were arrested. They would stick to their story at all costs.
I always liked seeing my lawyers, but now I had to brace myself for each visit. I didn’t have to wait long before they brought more devastating news.
Less than a week later, investigators reported that they’d found my DNA mixed with Meredith’s blood ringing the drain of the bidet in our shared bathroom. The implication was that I’d rinsed my hands and feet in the bidet after slashing her throat. They said that my skin cells had shown up—not Raffaele’s or Rudy Guede’s—because I was the last person to wash up in that bathroom.
The other update that day was something my lawyers had learned about when an Italian reporter held up his cell phone to show Luciano a series of photos in that day’s Daily Mail. “Chilling Pictures of Meredith Murder Scene Reveal Apartment Bloodbath Horror,” read the headline.
When I’d come home from Raffaele’s on November 2 there were two dots of blood in the sink and a tiny smear on the faucet. In one of the Daily Mail photos, the bathroom where I’d showered appeared to be drenched in blood. Police released the photo with no explanation. They didn’t say that the room had been sprayed with phenolphthalein, a chemical that, like luminol, is used as a first screen to detect the presence of blood. Also left out was the fact that phenolphthalein immediately turns certain bases and acids, including hemoglobin, a pinkish red. Thirty seconds after that, everything touched by phenolphthalein—every wall, every floor tile, every fixture, every towel—turns that lurid shade. I could only conclude that the police had distributed the pictures of the bathroom knowing that most people would never have heard of the chemical and would, naturally, believe the red was blood.
The pictures of the chemical-stained bathroom did what, I have to assume, the police wanted. The public reaction proved that a picture—especially a “bloody” picture from a crime scene—is worth a hundred thousand words. At least. I knew what people were thinking. Who but a knife-wielding killer would take a shower in a “blood-streaked” bathroom? Who but a liar would say there had been only a few flecks of blood? The answer? Foxy Knoxy.
The bathroom photos were released along with pictures of Meredith’s room, both before and after her body had been taken away. There were photos of the bloody shoeprint that was still being attributed to Raffaele, even after his family had proven it couldn’t be his. One photo offered an almost complete view of the room from the doorway; another showed Meredith’s naked foot sticking out from under her comforter. Close-ups showed the tremendous amount of blood Meredith lost, choked on, and died in. Seeing these shots made me weep. She must have been so scared.
The public doesn’t usually have the right to see the prosecution’s documentation until the defense does. But the photos were out, and there was no way to dampen the effect. It struck Luciano as another attempt by the prosecution to win public favor.
My lawyers complained to the judges that the prosecution was using the media to our disadvantage, but the judge said that whatever was reported in the press wouldn’t be held against us. The flow of information between the prosecution and the media was an accepted but unacknowledged fact.
Playing elite soccer as a teenager had taught me that to beat the opposing side, I’d need maximum endurance, perseverance,
and tenacity. I started thinking of myself as part of a team led by my lawyers; I had to help them succeed. Drawing on the little reserve I had left, I willed myself through the emotional pain. When I was seventeen, I played for a month on a broken foot before admitting it to my coach. I felt like that now: determined but vulnerable.
The denial, fear, and bafflement I felt in the beginning of this nightmare had turned into quiet indignation and defiance. I finally accepted that I was my only friend inside Capanne. I clung to my dad at every visit. The rest of the time, I used the only coping tool I knew: I retreated into my own head.
The natural reaction to having no control over your own life is to grab on to ways to feel that you do. In prison the only thing you’re in charge of is your body. You can overexercise. You can hurt it. You can overeat. You can starve. You can decide what goes in and what stays out. I refused to let antidepressants or sedatives cross my lips. And I went silent.
After nearly five months at Capanne, the only people I talked to consistently were my family on visiting days and Don Saulo, when I saw him (my only stress-free moments in prison). Otherwise I answered questions; I didn’t ask them. I didn’t comment. Memories of my real life at home were my sanctuary. I didn’t want to mix it up with this miserable faux life I was living behind bars.
Cera’s sense of control came from cleaning. When I moved in I liked that her cell was spotless. I didn’t understand that it was her obsession, until she demanded that I dry off the walls of the shower before I dried myself; place the shampoo and lotion bottles in a perfect line on the counter, equally spaced apart; tuck in my bedsheets with military precision; arrange the apples in the fruit bowl stem up; and avoid using the kitchen sink.
I tried hard to get along with Cera. I helped her with her schoolwork and either cleaned alongside her or stayed out of the way. My job, after she was done mopping and drying the floor, was to take a panno spugna—a spongelike cloth—and clean the baseboards on my hands and knees. I complained bitterly to Mom about these things when she came to Italy over her spring break.
One morning, when I was walking into the bathroom to put something away, I bumped into Cera, and she kissed me on the lips. I just stood there staring at her, too surprised to know what to say. “Your face is telling me that was not okay,” she said quickly. “I’m really sorry.”
She never made physical advances after that, but she did once ask if I was curious what it was like to have sex with a woman, like her. My stock answer—an emphatic no—made her feel bad.
I told Mom about that, too.
“Amanda, we need to talk,” Cera said one day. She was leaning in the kitchen doorway, watching me stare at the wall, her arms crossed over her thin torso. “Look, I don’t feel like we have a relationship. Why don’t you talk to me?”
“I honestly don’t have anything to say,” I said. “Everything I think about is really personal,” I stammered, my eyes starting to tear up.
I no longer trusted the authorities. They were against me. I was continually under surveillance. I read. I practiced Italian. I spent most of my time writing letters to the people I desperately missed—my mom, my dad, Madison, Brett, DJ, Oma, my sisters. It was the only way I felt connected to anything outside prison.
How could I explain this to Cera?
“When I look at you I see myself four years ago,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re guilty or not, but I worry about whether you suffer. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did. In the years I’ve spent in prison, I’ve screamed, fought, starved, and cut myself, and no one cared or made the effort to help me. Please come out of your shell before it destroys you. If you’re always hiding inside yourself, you won’t ever be able find your way back out.”
My only hope and constant thought during that winter and spring was that the judge might allow me to live with my family in an apartment, under house arrest. My first plea had been rejected, but my lawyers had another hearing scheduled for April 1. Even though Carlo and Luciano weren’t confident about the outcome, I was sure it would happen. I was counting the days.
Less than a week before the hearing, I heard on TV that Mignini had interrogated Rudy Guede again. I listened to the newscast, hoping Guede would tell the truth.
My heart started pounding as I listened. “Amanda and Raffaele were at the house that night,” Guede reportedly said. “I saw them. When I came out of the bathroom, I saw a male figure. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he had a knife in his hand. I also heard Amanda Knox. She was at the door; I saw her there. The two girls hated each other. It was a fight over money that sparked it off. Meredith accused Amanda of stealing three hundred euros from her drawer.”
“That’s a total lie!” I burst out. I’d never felt so much hatred for another person as I did toward Guede in that moment.
Cera looked over at me with a pitying glance. “Now you’re really screwed,” she said. “Once defendants start blaming each other, it’s all over—for him and for you. That’s what the prosecution wants. That’s how they make it impossible for you to defend yourself.”
Luciano and Carlo came to see me the next day. They reassured me that no one, not even the prosecution, believed Guede. “He ran away, he’s a liar, a thief, a rapist, a murderer,” Carlo said. “No one could ever consider him a reliable witness, because he has everything to gain from blaming you. The prosecution is making a big deal about it because it incriminates you.”
“Please, Amanda,” Luciano said. “This is not what you need to worry about. You need to stay strong.”
Still, I couldn’t be consoled. With Guede’s testimony against me, there was absolutely no chance a judge would free me from prison.
In early April, Carlo came to Capanne. His face gave away his worry. “Amanda,” he said, “the prosecution now says there’s evidence of a cleanup. They contend that’s why there’s no evidence that you and Raffaele were in Meredith’s bedroom—that you scrubbed the crime scene of your traces.”
“That’s the most ludicrous reasoning I’ve ever heard!” I screeched.
“Amanda, the investigators are in a conundrum,” Carlo said. “They found so much of Guede’s DNA in Meredith’s room and on and inside her body. But the only forensic evidence they have of you is outside her bedroom. Raffaele’s DNA evidence is only on the bra hook. If you and Raffaele participated in the murder, as the prosecution believes, your DNA should be as easy to find as Guede’s.”
“But Carlo, no evidence doesn’t mean we cleaned up. It means we weren’t there!”
“I know,” Carlo said, sighing. “But they’ve already decided that you and Raffaele faked a break-in to nail Guede. I know it doesn’t make sense. They’re just adding another link to the story. It’s the only way the prosecution can involve you and Raffaele when the evidence points to a break-in and murder by Guede.”
Judge Matteini sent me her decision about house arrest on May 16: “Denied.” By then the prosecution had stacked so much against me that Guede’s testimony hadn’t even figured in her decision. Even though I hadn’t left the country before my arrest, the judge was certain that Mom would have helped me leave when she was to have arrived in Perugia on November 6. That, she said, is why the police planned to arrest me before Mom could get to me. It turned out that they’d gotten her itinerary the same time I did—by bugging my phone.
Before concluding, the judge criticized me for not showing remorse for Meredith’s death.
When Carlo and Luciano came to tell me my request for house arrest had been denied, my mind rolled back to the questura on the morning of November 6. After my interrogation had ended, I was distraught and whimpering, sitting in the empty office with the lead interrogator, Rita Ficarra. My cell phone started ringing, vibrating loudly against the desktop, and I’d begged Ficarra to let me answer it. I was sure that it was my mom, and I knew she’d be undone with worry if I didn’t pick up.
This new setback conjured up all the desperation, the nauseating helplessness, I’d felt that
morning. I could hardly breathe thinking about it. I remembered how relieved I’d been that my mom was flying over, how much I needed her. As soon as she said she was coming to Italy, I realized I’d been stubbornly, stupidly insistent that I could help the police find Meredith’s killer on my own.
I’d been tricked.
I understood that this regret went beyond me. My mom was eating herself up with guilt for not having come sooner. When I saw her over her spring break, she’d lost twenty pounds. She wept at every visit.
After the judge’s decision, everything seemed darker. I talked to Don Saulo a lot about how claustrophobic I felt with the possibility of house arrest off the table. I couldn’t concentrate on reading, Italian grammar, or even on writing letters home, for all the anger, disappointment, and sadness I felt.
Cera started trying to prepare me for the chance of another fifteen years in prison. “I think you should say you’re guilty,” she advised me one day, “because it will take years off your sentence.”
“I will not lie!” I yelled, spitting out one word at a time. “I’m not scared of Guede or the prosecutor! I’m ready to fight! I don’t know anything about this murder, and I will go free!”
Luciano and Carlo tried to steel me for what they knew would eventually happen.
“You have to be ready to take this case to trial,” Carlo said one day in May, his finger poised over the mouse pad of his laptop. “The prosecution is going to say things about you. You’re going to see and hear all the horrible details of Meredith’s murder. It’s going to be tough on you, Amanda.”
With that, he turned his computer around for me to see. He scrolled down. Meredith’s face, tilted upward, showed up yellow and wide-eyed on the screen. A grotesque, dark, gaping gash seemed to burst from her neck.
Ah! I gasped and turned away. I felt as if I were choking.
Carlo half-rose and said, “Amanda, calm down.”