A Death in Italy: The Definitive Account of the Amanda Knox Case

by Follain, John

  Stefanoni was unruffled. ‘One yes, the other one’s hidden by my thumb.’

  ‘Can you confirm to me the answer you gave me in pre-trial hearings that you didn’t touch the hooks with your gloves?’

  Stefanoni, herself pointing at the screen: ‘Excuse me but you can’t see that I … you can’t see on these images [whether I did or not] …’

  Bongiorno: ‘All right, everyone will make up their own minds.’

  The exchange caused tension in the courtroom with prosecutors and lawyers talking over each other. Judge Massei called for calm and intervened to clarify the issue: ‘You say you didn’t touch the hooks?’

  ‘In those images I didn’t, perhaps I did …’ In any case, Stefanoni explained, she and her colleagues had just slipped on new gloves when they entered the room intending to look for the missing clasp.

  Bongiorno sought to imply that Stefanoni had been less than professional in her discovery of Raffaele’s DNA on the clasp: ‘Just to clarify, when you did this test you already had Raffaele’s profile?’

  Stefanoni, as calm and professional as ever: ‘Certainly …’

  ‘So you already had Raffaele’s profile from his saliva swab and you asked yourself: “Can Raffaele’s profile fit in this chart I have here?” ’

  ‘No, you don’t ask yourself the question first, that’s not right.’

  Bongiorno insisted: ‘But you had it—’

  ‘But it’s not as if I knew it by heart! I don’t even know my own by heart! It doesn’t work like that.’

  As Bongiorno continued to imply that Stefanoni had wrongly interrupted the results of the DNA test on the clasp, the biologist pointed out: ‘But there’s something you can’t explain away – the Y chromosome, you can’t ignore that.’ She meant theY chromosome found on the clasp could only be attributed to Raffaele or to a male relative.

  ‘Let’s forget about that for now,’ a flustered Bongiorno observed before moving on.

  Just as Bongiorno had focused on the bra clasp, Amanda’s lawyer, Dalla Vedova, concentrated on the kitchen knife – her DNA had been found on the handle, and Meredith’s on the blade. Dalla Vedova asked Stefanoni first about the way the knife had been sent to her from Perugia, in a cardboard box rather than in an evidence bag.

  ‘Was the box sterilised according to you?’ he asked.

  ‘But we don’t have sterilised exhibits …’

  ‘But the evidence bag is.’

  ‘No, not even the exhibits are sterile, God forbid! … For me sterile means something which doesn’t have any microorganisms. We don’t have anything which is sterile. Not even our gloves; they’re in a box.’

  While Dalla Vedova quizzed Stefanoni, Amanda wrote several pages of suggestions on what he should ask and passed them to him. He too sought to undermine Stefanoni’s work, trying to cast doubt over the way she had concentrated and then amplified the sample on the handle in which Amanda’s DNA was found. He also challenged her over her decision to apply a swab to the part of the handle where the hand butted against a small prominence that prevented it from slipping onto the blade.

  Stefanoni explained: ‘I have to analyse the exhibit in an objective way, so I analyse the exhibit within the context of a murder – and not as if it was being used for cooking.’

  ‘Anyway, when someone cuts bread, how do you think they hold the knife? Don’t they hold it the same way?’

  ‘No, you don’t hold it the same way.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Excuse me, but I don’t stab a piece of bread, I—’

  ‘I cut it,’ Dalla Vedova completed the sentence for her.

  The point where she’d taken the sample, Stefanoni added, ‘indicates someone sticking a knife through something rather than someone cutting something.’ She mimed a stabbing gesture with her clenched fist.

  Several jurors looked taken aback at her gesture, and a few spectators in the courtroom gasped. Judge Massei again had to ask for calm as the prosecutors and lawyers argued among themselves.

  After nine hours in court, Stefanoni dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief – her contact lenses were giving her trouble. It was her first sign of strain; she had remained calm and professional throughout her testimony. Judge Massei suspended the hearing, and asked her to return the next day.

  23 May 2009

  Dalla Vedova pressed Stefanoni on why one of her colleagues, when working in the small bathroom used by Amanda and Meredith, had used a single swab to pick up trace marks of blood on the edge of the bidet and on the bottom near the plug. The sample contained mixed traces belonging to both Amanda and Meredith.

  But Stefanoni doggedly insisted that her colleague had been right to use a single swab because the trace was a single one, as proven by the thin pink rivulet running from the edge of the bidet down towards the plug.

  Later Mignini gave Stefanoni, who had analysed thousands of DNA traces in the course of her career, a chance to defend her professional record.

  ‘For how many years have you been doing this job?’ Mignini asked.

  ‘Almost seven years.’

  ‘Almost seven years. Have you dealt with cases similar to this one?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, yes.’

  ‘Do you remember whether you have always followed the same methods?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In both taking samples and in assessing them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, do you remember any cases of exhibits being contaminated?’

  ‘No. We’ve never had any problems of the kind.’

  Judge Massei also asked Stefanoni about the defence lawyers’ charge that the bra clasp had somehow been contaminated with Raffaele’s DNA.

  ‘If the clasp had been contaminated with DNA from another source, what could that source be?’ the judge asked.

  ‘Look, no other trace of Raffaele’s DNA alone was found in the flat. There’s only one trace of his DNA and that’s on a cigarette end, but it’s mixed with Amanda’s … So there’s no reason to say that his DNA is present somewhere else and could have accidentally contaminated the clasp,’ she replied.

  When Stefanoni left the witness box after another six hours – in total, she’d been giving evidence for fifteen hours over two days – the two prosecutors were both jubilant. Mignini warmly shook her hand as she left the courtroom, while Comodi kissed her on both cheeks.

  ‘You know who said: “You should never fight a battle you can’t win”? Lenin,’ Mignini said afterwards with a smile. ‘If you’re a defence lawyer and you’re up against a witness like Stefanoni, the best thing would be not to ask any questions at all.’

  47

  25 May 2009

  For the first time since the trial started, Amanda looked downcast when she greeted the prison chaplain Father Saulo in jail.

  ‘The worst thing is that I feel powerless. People are saying things which aren’t true, and I feel there’s nothing I can do about it,’ she said.

  But Amanda was soon her calm, smiling self again. Father Saulo marvelled at how self-possessed she was, and how unaffected she seemed by what was said against her in court. Sometimes he would mention something about the trial – such as experts testifying that the knife found at Raffaele’s flat was compatible with Meredith’s wounds.

  ‘Is this positive or negative for you? It looks negative to me,’ Father Saulo would ask her.

  But whatever Father Saulo mentioned, Amanda always interpreted it as something positive.

  The priest couldn’t make up his mind whether she was an amazing actress, whether she was deceiving herself, or whether she was simply innocent.

  On one visit to the prison, Father Saulo saw that Amanda had done a drawing of two human heads facing each other – both wearing blindfolds. Some women prisoners were putting on an adaptation of the parable of the Prodigal Son, and the drawing was part of the backdrop. The priest thought she’d done the drawing well – but he had no idea what it meant.

  6 June 2009

  Meredith’
s mother Arline, a small, fragile-looking figure dressed all in black, her face heavily lined, looked at neither Amanda nor Raffaele when she walked past them to take her turn on the witness box. Her former husband, John, and Meredith’s sister, Stephanie, also wearing black for their first day at the trial, watched from a back row where they sat next to the detective Napoleoni, who proudly wore her police badge on a chain around her neck.

  Arline answered questions from her lawyer Maresca in a low voice, with the help of an interpreter.

  Arline talked of how Meredith had gone to live in the cottage: ‘She found a flat on the student noticeboard at the university. She picked that place because of the view through the window and it’s very close to the university. The Umbrian countryside, it’s beautiful.

  ‘There were two Italian girls and they seemed nice because they took her to the landlord and translated everything for her. There was also supposed to be an American coming in a month,’ Arline went on.

  Arline clearly found it hard to use Amanda’s name. Describing the start of Meredith’s relationship with Amanda, she said: ‘I think the American girl arrived on 26 September, and Meredith invited her out for lunch and introduced her to friends and, um, Amanda said that she only wanted to socialise with Italians to help her with the language.’

  Speaking in Italian, Maresca asked Arline how she had found out about the death of Meredith. The interpreter mistakenly translated the question as: ‘How did you take the death of Meredith?’

  The brutality of the question took Arline aback. She sat silently for a moment, sighed, then said as the interpreter held her hand: ‘Her death was unbelievable, unreal, in many ways it still is. I’m still looking for her. It’s not just the death but also the way it was done, the brutality of it, the violence, the great sadness it brought to everyone. And it’s such a shock to send your daughter to school and she’ – tears came to Arline’s eyes – ‘doesn’t come back any more. We will never get over it.’

  Maresca asked Arline if Meredith had been worried about anything in Perugia.

  ‘Mainly the course she was doing. She never really said there was any trouble in particular but all my children try and shield me, they don’t tell me everything because they don’t want to worry me’ – Arline chuckled – ‘but if she’d come back home she would have told me. She wouldn’t have wanted to worry me being so far from home.’

  Later, Mignini asked Arline what Meredith had told her on 31 October, the day before she died, and on 1 November.

  ‘The thirty-first when she rang she said she was going round to her girlfriends’ house, they would do their make-up and dress up for Halloween so she was looking forward to that. Then on the first when she rang she said she was really tired because she’d stayed up so late. She said she was going to her friends’ to watch a DVD. I think it was the English girls who were at Leeds; I don’t remember if she mentioned them by name. She was going to come back early and have an early night.’

  When it was Stephanie’s turn to testify, Maresca asked her whether her sister had been physically strong.

  ‘Yes, she did gym when she was little, she did karate, and once we did boxing in a gym together,’ Stephanie replied.

  Would Meredith have defended herself when attacked?

  ‘Absolutely, 110 per cent. Mez had a very strong character and physically she was very strong. She was very passionate about things that were important to her – her family, her friends, coming to Italy and she fought for her place here.’

  When Meredith’s father John, the last of her relatives to testify, recalled how he had found out about Meredith’s death from a newspaper colleague, Stephanie cried silently. Arline put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder to comfort her.

  Amanda’s lawyers thought hard about whether they should summon her to testify at the trial. They decided she should give evidence, believing it would be a key part of her defence. Ghirga believed that Amanda needed to gain credibility in the eyes of the court. There was a limit to how much the lawyers could achieve on her behalf. Amanda speaking for herself would be the best way of increasing her credibility, he thought.

  He was confident that Amanda would be up to it. He didn’t mind whether she cried, or whether she suddenly put a stop to the questioning, as was her right. What mattered to him was what she said, and that she should come across as sincere and credible.

  ‘Just say what you want to say, and be yourself,’ Ghirga told her.

  But in the run-up to her giving evidence, her lawyers prepared her carefully. They went over not only what she was going to say but how she was going to say it. They told her that she must look at the person asking the question, but that she should then look at the judges and jury when answering.

  ‘Really, I hadn’t noticed that!’ a surprised Amanda exclaimed.

  According to her stepfather, Chris, she was ‘looking forward’ to testifying. ‘It freaks her out but she says this whole thing isn’t so new anymore. She’s got her story and she’s going to tell it. She’s not shy. If the prosecutors yell at her, she’ll just clam up; we parents never had to do that with her. The prosecutors may want her to cry, but I don’t think the judge will let them treat her badly. But Amanda may cry, she’s pretty easy to get to tears,’ he said.

  The Kerchers’ lawyer, Maresca, didn’t expect it would come to that. ‘Amanda may last an hour or she may last two days, it depends just on whether she manages to control her feelings or not. Her lawyers will jump in and stop everything if she looks as if she’s about to break down,’ he predicted.

  48

  12 June 2009

  ‘AMANDA-DAY’ read the newspaper placards on a hot, sunny morning as swifts swooped and shrieked over the satellite dishes of the TV vans on the square outside the law courts; her testimony attracted almost as many journalists as on the first day of the trial six months earlier.

  Wearing a white blouse with short sleeves, cream trousers and her hair in the usual ponytail, Amanda started chewing her nails soon after entering the courtroom and taking her seat. Her face was wan, slightly shiny with sweat; there were deep black lines under her eyes and a big blister on her upper lip.

  Before she was called to the witness box, her lawyers requested that TV cameras be allowed to film her testimony, a request that was accepted by Judge Massei. Comodi muttered in a low voice: ‘I knew they’d put on a show!’

  The swallows’ cries could be heard through an open window as two guards escorted Amanda the few feet to the witness box. She walked slowly and stiffly, and licked her lips as she sat waiting, her back straight and her hands clasped in her lap. A woman guard stood with arms crossed behind her, and an interpreter sat next to her. Amanda, her mouth open, took two deep breaths.

  ‘Amanda Knox,’ she said in a loud, clear voice when Judge Massei asked her to say her name.

  The lawyer Carlo Pacelli, representing the bar-owner Patrick Lumumba whom she’d accused of murdering Meredith before retracting her statement, was the first to question her. A kindly, old-fashioned figure, Pacelli greeted her politely: ‘Good morning Signorina Amanda.’

  Calm and self-assured, and at first speaking in English, she admitted to Pacelli that yes, she used to smoke marijuana ‘every so often’ with her friends. Asked about her relations with Patrick, she replied – in the present tense before correcting herself: ‘I like Patrick very much, I liked him very much.’ He had always treated her well and she wasn’t scared of him.

  Pacelli asked Amanda about the night of the murder. How long had she taken to reply to Patrick’s text message telling her not to come to work that night?

  ‘I think I replied as soon as I saw the message,’ Amanda said.

  Pacelli, quick as a flash: ‘The fact is, you replied after about twenty-five minutes. Why did you wait such a long time?’

  ‘I don’t remember now.’

  Asked why she’d deleted Patrick’s message, Amanda said: ‘I had limited space in my mobile, and when I received messages I didn’t need to rememb
er, I deleted them.’

  Pacelli moved on to the night of 5 November 2007 and her statement to police that Patrick had killed Meredith. Why had she said she’d met Patrick at the basketball court on Piazza Grimana that evening before they went to the cottage?

  Amanda embarked on a lengthy account of how the police had questioned her. She hadn’t expected to be questioned that night – only Raffaele had been summoned – but detectives asked her who she thought could have killed Meredith and about what she’d done that evening. They’d asked to see the messages on her mobile phone. When she’d said she couldn’t remember sending a reply to Patrick, they’d called her ‘a stupid liar’ and accused her of trying to protect someone.

  ‘They put the mobile in front of me and they said: “Look, look at the messages.You were going to meet someone?” And when I denied it they went on calling me “stupid liar” and from then on I was so scared, they were treating me so badly and I didn’t understand why.’

  A police interpreter had then suggested that Amanda might be traumatised and couldn’t remember the truth. ‘This thing seemed ridiculous to me, because I remembered I was definitely at Raffaele’s flat, I remember having done things at Raffaele’s flat. I looked at emails and then we watched the film [Amélie], we talked and we had dinner, and I didn’t leave the flat then,’ Amanda said.

  Detectives shouted at her and threatened to jail her for trying to protect someone. ‘I started to imagine that perhaps I was traumatised as I’d been told. They went on saying I’d met someone and they went on putting so much emphasis on the message I’d received from Patrick and so I was almost convinced that I’d met him, but I was confused,’ Amanda said.

  The detectives Napoleoni and Ficarra, who sat in the back row of the courtroom listening closely, shook their heads repeatedly as she described the way she’d been treated.