by Amanda Knox
What made their theory even weaker was Capezzali herself. She testified that the morning after she heard the scream, some kids ran by while she was cleaning her apartment and told her a girl in the villa had been killed. Then, at around 11 A.M., when she went out to buy bread, she saw posters with Meredith’s face at the newsstand.
The problem: Meredith’s body wasn’t discovered until after 1 P.M. on November 2. When Mignini asked Capezzali if she might have heard the scream on Halloween and not on November 1, she snapped, “I don’t remember these things, these hours, these things. I don’t remember them anymore.”
I was sure there was no way the jury would put their faith in someone who said she didn’t remember.
Antonio Curatolo was a gray-bearded homeless man who appeared in court as bundled up as if he were on the park bench where he spent most of his time. Like Quintavalle, the storeowner, Curatolo didn’t come forward until months after our arrest—and then only at the urging of a local reporter. But the media were billing him as Prosecutor Mignini’s “super testimone”—“super witness.”
I’d been surprised and discouraged when I first heard that a homeless man was claiming he’d seen Raffaele and me at the basketball court in Piazza Grimana on November 1—another story the police had leaked to the media long before the trial began. Impossible claims like this kept popping up out of nowhere, putting me under constant attack. And I didn’t feel any better when, during a break, Luciano whispered to me, “He’s Mignini’s personal ‘serial-witness.’”
It turned out that this was the third trial in which Mignini had used Curatolo.
Raffaele and I were, Curatolo said, animatedly talking or arguing with each other and occasionally looking over the fence in the direction of the villa. When was this? From 9:30 P.M. to a little before midnight on November 1, Curatolo answered.
I was surprised by his rambling, and frustrated that the court was giving his testimony credence.
The basketball court was made to order for the prosecution. The most direct walk from Raffaele’s apartment to my villa was through Piazza Grimana. It was also the place where Rudy Guede was known to play pick-up games and hang out. It was where I’d once tried to shoot hoops with the guys from downstairs and ended up watching from the sidelines. I hadn’t argued with anyone there, and I’d never been back, but what if the jury bought this guy’s story?
And why was the prosecution bringing it up? If the story was true, we would have had an alibi. If Curatolo had seen us in the piazza that early, we couldn’t have committed the murder between 9:30 P.M. and 10 P.M., when the defense believed Meredith died. And if he’d seen us as late as midnight, we couldn’t have made Meredith scream at 11:30 P.M., as Nara Capezzali had reported. His account undermined the prosecution’s theory.
That’s why Mignini wound back the time that Curatolo had last seen us.
“How did you know what time it was?” an obviously irritated Mignini asked.
“It was shortly before midnight when I left Piazza Grimana to go sleep in the park on the other side of the university,” the witness said.
“And you left before midnight?” Mignini pushed.
“Yes, between eleven thirty P.M. and midnight.”
“And the last time you saw them was before you left Piazza Grimana?”
“Yes.”
“So before eleven thirty P.M.?”
“Yes.”
Hekuran Kokomani had appeared at our pretrial, where the judge deemed him unreliable. But his testimony was critical to the prosecution. He was the lone person who claimed to have seen Raffaele and me together with Rudy Guede.
Mignini asked Kokomani to point me out in the courtroom. Later, under cross-examination, Carlo asked him how he could be sure it was me he recognized. He’d gotten a good look at my face, Kokomani said, and he remembered me because of the gap between my front teeth. With a look from Carlo, I turned to the court and parted my lips like a child showing newly brushed teeth. Before Carlo could point out that there was no gap, Kokomani muttered in bewilderment, “Oh, she doesn’t have it anymore.”
One jury member tried to muffle laughter.
Kokomani’s testimony was a triumph for us. The prosecution looked inept for putting him on the stand.
My confidence grew as each of Mignini’s witnesses delivered testimony full of holes and questionable content. The claims made by his super witnesses strained credulity.
I dreaded Patrick Lumumba’s testimony for his civil trial. It still gnawed at me that I’d never apologized to him. I was sure the man I’d wrongly named would rail against me. He had told the media that he would never forgive me, he’d lied about firing me, and he had called me “a lion,” “a liar,” and “a racist.” His lawyer, Carlo Pacelli, had called me “Luciferina” and said I had “an angel’s face with a demon’s soul.”
To my enormous surprise, instead of trashing me, Patrick’s testimony was full of sadness. He was nine or ten when his politician father was kidnapped, and he never saw him again. “We can’t prove he’s dead, we can’t prove if my father is alive.” When Patrick was in jail, he was terrified that history would repeat itself. “I had this feeling that I wasn’t going to be able to hold my son again . . . To this day, during the night, I have to go check to see if my son is still there.”
He described how difficult it was to reopen his pub after the police had shut it down for three months—and how it ultimately failed.
He was also far more forgiving than I’d expected. I wasn’t the best waitress, but I was a fine person, he said.
I can only guess why Patrick had decided to tone down his anti-Amanda commentary. Either he felt he had to be honest under oath or his lawyer had advised him to act meek and likable—and let the venom be rained down by Pacelli himself. Whatever the reason, Patrick told the court, “We always had a good relationship.”
Then it was my turn.
At first my lawyers said letting me testify was a risk. I could be provoked. They worried the prosecution would push me to unwittingly say something incriminating. I’d fallen for Mignini’s word-twisting when he interrogated me in December of 2007. I’d dissolved into tears at my pretrial.
But I was adamant. “I’m the only one who knows what I went through during the interrogation,” I told Luciano and Carlo. “Having you defend me isn’t the same as defending myself. I need to show the court what kind of person I am.”
I felt it was crucial that I testify. I wanted to talk about my relationship with Meredith. I needed to explain my behavior in the wake of her murder.
Raffaele didn’t testify. That may have been the right choice for him. Most of the media attention had landed on me—Raffaele was seen as someone who had gone along with his evil girlfriend.
In testifying, I wanted to make a point: You guys make me sound like I was crazy that I found three droplets of blood in the bathroom sink and didn’t call the police immediately. But I was a twenty-year-old who handled the situation the same way a lot of inexperienced people would have. It’s easy to look back and criticize my response, but when I went home that day I didn’t know there had been a break-in or a murder. To me, it was a regular day. Yes. The door was open. But I’d known since I moved in that the lock was broken. Maybe it was a cause for concern, but I just figured one of my roommates was taking out the trash or had run to the corner store. I was focused on getting ready for our romantic weekend in Gubbio. My thoughts were mundane. I’ll grab a shower. I’ll pack. I’ll get back to Raffaele’s, and we’ll go.
I knew I wasn’t going to convince Mignini that I was innocent. He was too invested in bringing me down to be open to changing his mind. That was okay. I was addressing the people who hadn’t yet taken sides.
My lawyers’ advice was straightforward: “Remain calm. We’ll ask the questions. No one will rush you. It’s okay to say, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
I didn’t want to say, “I don’t know,” but in the two years since the interrogation, my memory of it had grown hazy
. I didn’t want to hang on to that night. I’d tried to let it go. I wondered if people would understand how traumatizing it was.
During the weeks leading up to my testimony, I was nervous. What sort of questions would the prosecution ask? Would I be emotionally up to speaking?
But when anyone asked me what I was thinking about my court dates—June 12 and 13—I’d take a deep breath and say, “I’m ready, I’m ready. It just needs to happen.”
I knew Mignini liked to intimidate people. I gave myself a pep talk. He scared and surprised you the first and second times. But three times? I don’t think so!
As the date got closer, I slept little and talked less. Journalists reported that I was pale and had dark circles under my eyes.
True. I was wearing my anxiety on my face. The day before I had to testify, a nasty cold sore appeared on my lip. My mantra for myself ran through my mind. You are not afraid. You are not afraid of Mignini. This is your chance.
When I saw the prosecutor in court, Mignini seemed like a blowhard in a silly robe. I wished I had felt that way when he questioned me before.
The first person to question me was Carlo Pacelli, Patrick’s lawyer. Lawyers technically aren’t allowed to add their own commentary at this point, only to ask questions. But he made his opinions known through pointed questions like “Did you or did you not accuse Patrick Lumumba of a murder he didn’t commit?” and “Didn’t the police officers treat you well during your interrogation?”
The lawyer looked disgusted with me. I sat as straight as I could in my chair and pushed my shoulders back—my I-will-not-be-bullied stance.
Within a few minutes I realized that the interpreter hired to translate my English into Italian—the same useless woman I was assigned earlier in the trial—wasn’t saying precisely what I was saying.
I’ve finally gotten a chance to speak! If she gets it wrong, I’ll lose my chance forever.
“Your Honor, I’d like to speak in Italian,” I said politely. I didn’t think about whether it would work or whether it was a good idea. All I could think was, I have been waiting my turn for nearly two years. This is it!
At least prison life had been good for my language skills.
I was relieved to be able to speak directly to the jury. The hard part wasn’t the Italian; it was being an active listener for hours at a time, making sure I heard the questions correctly and that my questioners didn’t push me around.
Pacelli tried to insinuate that I’d come up with Patrick’s name on my own in my interrogation. “No,” I said. “They put my cell phone in front of me, and said, ‘Look, look at the messages. You were going to meet someone.’ And when I denied it they called me a ‘stupid liar.’ From then on I was so scared. They were treating me badly, and I didn’t know why.
“It was because the police misunderstood the words ‘see you later.’ In English, it’s not taken literally. It’s just another way of saying ‘good-bye.’ But the police kept asking why I’d made an appointment to meet Patrick. ‘Are you covering for Patrick?’ they demanded. ‘Who’s Patrick?’ ”
We went over how I found the room for rent in the villa, my relationship with Meredith, my history with alcohol and marijuana, and what happened on November 2. The prosecution and the civil parties were confrontational. I was able to respond. It took two exhausting days, and there were a few questions I couldn’t answer.
I’d purposely tried to forget the emotional pain of the slap to my head. Other memories had become muddled by time. For instance, I remembered calling my mom only once after Meredith’s body was found, but cell phone records indicated that I’d made three calls while Raffaele and I were standing in my driveway.
During my testimony, I was clear. I never stumbled or stalled. I just said, This is what happened. This is what I went through.
I relaxed a little when it was Luciano’s turn to question me.
“During the interrogation, there were all these people around me,” I said. “In front and behind me, yelling, threatening, and then there was a policewoman behind me who did this.”
I slapped my own head to demonstrate.
“One time, two times?” Luciano asked.
“Two times,” I said. “The first time I did this.”
I dropped my head down as if I’d been struck and opened my mouth wide in surprise.
“Then I turned around toward her and she gave me another.”
“So you said what you said, and then you had a crisis of weeping. Then they brought you tea, some coffee, some pastries? When did this happen? If you can be precise,” Luciano asked.
“They brought me things only after I made declarations”—depositions—“that Patrick had raped and murdered Meredith, and I had been at the house covering my ears.
“I was there, they were yelling at me, and I only wanted to leave, because I was thinking about my mom, who was arriving soon, and so I said, ‘Look, can I please have my phone,’ because I wanted to call my mom. They told me no, and then there was this chaos. They yelled at me. They threatened me. It was only after I made declarations that they said, ‘No, no, no. Don’t worry. We’ll protect you. Come on.’ That’s what happened.
“Before they asked me to make other declarations—I can’t say what time it was—but at a certain point I asked, ‘Shouldn’t I have a lawyer or not?’ because I didn’t honestly know, because I had seen shows on television that usually when you do these things you have a lawyer, but okay, so should I have one? And at least one of them told me it would be worse for me, because it showed that I didn’t want to collaborate with the police. So I said no.”
Then it was Mignini’s turn. “Why did you say, ‘Patrick’s name was suggested to me, I was beaten, I was put under pressure?’ ”
As soon as I started to answer, Mignini interrupted with another question. He’d done the same thing to me during my interrogation at the prison. This time, I wasn’t going to let it fluster me. I was going to answer one question at a time. Showing my irritation, I said, “Can I go on?”
I described my November 5 interrogation again. “As the police shouted at me, I squeezed my brain, thinking, ‘What have I forgotten? What have I forgotten?’ The police were saying, ‘Come on, come on, come on. Do you remember? Do you remember? Do you remember?’ And then boom on my head.” I imitated a slap. “‘Remember!’ the policewoman shouted. And then boom again. ‘Do you remember?’ ”
When Mignini told me I still hadn’t proved that the police had suggested Patrick’s name, my lawyers jumped up. The exchange was so heated that Judge Massei asked if I wanted to stop.
I said no.
At the end, the judge asked what I thought of as a few inconsequential questions, such as, Did I turn up the heat when I got to the villa that Friday morning? Did we have heat in the bathroom, or was it cold? Rather, the judge was trying to catch me in an inconsistency. Why would I come home to a cold house when I could have showered at Raffaele’s?
Then it was over.
In the past I hadn’t been great at standing up for myself. I was proud that this time was different.
When the hearing ended, I got two minutes to talk to my lawyers before the guards led me out of the courtroom. “I was nervous when you first spoke,” Luciano admitted, “but by the end I was proud of you.”
Carlo said, “Amanda, you nailed it. You came across as a nice, intelligent, sincere girl. You left a good impression.”
I took this to mean that I didn’t come across as “Foxy Knoxy.”
For a while during the trial, the guards would let my parents say hello and good-bye to me in the stairwell just before I left the courthouse for the day. My mom, my dad, Deanna, Aunt Christina, and Uncle Kevin were waiting for me there that day. They hugged me tightly. “We’re so proud of you,” they said.
I hadn’t felt this good since before Meredith was murdered.
After another few days in court, the judge called a two-month summer break.
Chapter 27
September
1–October 9, 2009
The court-ordered summer vacation seemed as endless as the summers of my childhood. But in those days, summer meant freedom; now summer meant confinement. Two wasted months in captivity. At the end I would be no closer to getting out than I was on the first day.
In early September Luciano, Carlo, and another lawyer in Carlo’s office, Maria Del Grosso, drove to Capanne to see me.
Carlo leaned across the table in the visitors’ room. “Amanda,” he said. “They’re wrong!”
His customary pessimism had vanished. “There was no blood on the knife,” he said. “And there was so little DNA present they didn’t have enough to get valid results. We have everything we need to overturn the case!”
I leapt up. Bouncing around on the balls of my feet, I had so much to say that the words tangled in my mouth. “Thank you!” I said. “You did it! Tell me! How did you figure it out?”
The proof, he said, was in the papers.
We’d been asking to see the prosecution’s notes and test results since before the pretrial. Only by following in the Polizia Scientifica’s footsteps could we understand how the prosecution’s DNA analyst, Patrizia Stefanoni, had come up with her information.
The prosecution was legally required to share the evidence, but even on the pretrial judge’s orders they hadn’t released all of it.
That had been in September 2008. By then it was July 2009. Ten months had passed. On the day the court recessed for the summer, Judge Massei ordered the prosecution to give us the data.
They still held back some information, but within the papers they did give us, our forensic experts found the prosecution had failed to disclose a fact that should have prevented us from ever being charged. There was no way to tie this knife—and therefore, me—to Meredith’s murder. I’d always known that it was impossible for Meredith’s DNA to be on the knife, and I’d long known that the prosecution had leaked assumed evidence to the media. Now I knew that these mistakes weren’t missteps. Stefanoni and her team had made giant, intentionally misleading leaps, to come up with results designed to confirm our guilt.