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

by Follain, John

  5 October 2011

  Unexpectedly fuelling the Kerchers’ sense of bewilderment, Judge Pratillo Hellmann told Italian radio in an interview just two days after the verdict that Amanda and Raffaele may be guilty of Meredith’s murder – even though his court had acquitted them.

  The judge said he was certain that Rudy knew what had happened that night, but hadn’t said so. ‘Maybe Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito also know what happened that night, because our acquittal verdict stems from the truth which was established in the trial. But the real truth can be different,’ he said. ‘They may be responsible, but there isn’t the evidence.’

  He added: ‘So, perhaps they too know what happened that night, but that’s not our conclusion.’

  22 November 2011

  Mignini lost Amanda and Raffaele’s appeal trial, but six weeks later he won an appeal of his own. In February 2010, a judge had given the prosecutor a suspended prison sentence of one year and four months for abuse of office. The judge said he had broken the law in tapping the phones of three police officers and three journalists who were working on a suspicious death linked to the serial killer known as the ‘Monster of Florence’.

  But now a Florence appeal court overthrew the guilty verdict, ruling that the judge who convicted Mignini was disqualified from hearing the case because a local prosecutor was also involved. At the same time, the court also quashed a suspended prison sentence doled out to Michele Giuttari, the former head of Florence’s Flying Squad.

  It ordered the case files be sent to prosecutors in Turin in northern Italy. But legal sources said the investigation would be eventually dropped as it was expected to exceed the limit set on the length of time a case could drag through the courts.

  15 December 2011

  In a 143-page review of the evidence, Judges Pratillo Hellmann and Zanetti gave their reasons for granting Amanda and Raffaele their freedom.

  Amanda had indeed slandered Patrick during police questioning but, the judges maintained, she did so under ‘considerable psychological pressure’. At the time she was a young foreign girl who had difficulty speaking and understanding Italian well, and she didn’t have a lawyer. An interpreter urged her to try to remember what had happened on the night of Meredith’s death, telling her that she might well feel confused after the trauma she had suffered. The questioning ‘of obsessive duration’ by day and at night had been ‘a real torment’ for Amanda and, exhausted, she had accused Patrick in the hope of ending it – ‘she gave detectives what they wanted to hear: a name, a murderer.’ What she said about Patrick was more like ‘a macabre dream’ than a description of what actually happened.

  The judges refused to take into account Rudy’s accusation that Amanda and Raffaele had murdered Meredith since he had not been summoned before the appeal court to testify about the night she died. Instead, Rudy had been summoned to testify about the accounts of his fellow prisoners, who claimed he had described her murder to them. The judges dismissed the testimony of these fellow prisoners as unreliable. In any case, the judges said, his accusation against Amanda and Raffaele wasn’t an account of events that had taken place but ‘only a personal conviction’.

  Nor did the judges give any importance to Curatolo’s testimony. He was a tramp, a former heroin addict who dealt in drugs, and most importantly he was unsure whether he saw Amanda and Raffaele on the night of the murder or on the previous night. In the judges’ opinion, Curatolo had probably seen them on the night before the murder – on 31 October.

  Similarly, the grocer Quintavalle was ‘not very reliable’. As he himself admitted, he had initially had doubts over whether the young woman he saw in his shop early on the morning after the murder was Amanda. As a result, he did not tell Mignini about the episode until a year later.

  Repeatedly challenging the findings of Judge Massei’s court, the judges estimated that Meredith died not at about 11.30 p.m. but rather no later than 10.13 p.m. They based this on an account Rudy gave a friend – he said Meredith died between 9 and 9.30 p.m. – and phone traffic on her mobile phone. If the tramp Curatolo was to be believed – and the judges repeated that he shouldn’t be – then his testimony alone would be enough to clear Amanda and Raffaele because he placed them in Piazza Grimana at that time, the judges wrote.

  The Massei court had established that the kitchen knife found in Raffaele’s flat had been used to kill Meredith. But according to the appeal judges, it was not a murder weapon. Quoting defence consultants, they argued that a smaller knife had caused the most serious of the wounds on Meredith’s neck. The judges branded as ‘really bizarre’ the Massei court’s suggestion that Amanda might have taken to carrying the kitchen knife in her handbag in order to protect herself. She had been going out alone at night for years and was unlikely, they reasoned, to start carrying a knife simply because Raffaele, whom she had not known for long, urged her to do so.

  Even more improbable was the idea that Amanda and Raffaele would put such a murder weapon back in the kitchen drawer. ‘Is it really likely,’ the judges asked, ‘that two normal, even “good” young people, who were certainly shocked by what had happened … after taking part in such a barbaric murder, would have not only conceived the cold and diabolical idea of keeping the knife, instead of getting rid of it, even putting it back with the rest of the cutlery, but also the callousness and the gall to go on using that cutlery, and perhaps the knife, to prepare meals in the days after the crime?’

  The judges then examined what they called ‘the cornerstone’ of the Massei court’s reconstruction – the DNA evidence. Clearly mindful of the prosecution’s attacks on the competence of the forensic experts they had appointed to review DNA evidence on the kitchen knife, and on Meredith’s bra clasp, the judges warmly praised Professors Vecchiotti and Conti. The two came from one of Italy’s most prestigious universities – La Sapienza in Rome – they were both experts in the field of forensic genetics and ‘they both deserve the full confidence of the court as professionals and as individuals.’

  The judges quoted the two experts at length, approving their findings without reservation. They agreed that the forensic police had failed to follow guidelines set by the international scientific community in its work on both the knife and the bra clasp. There was no trace of Meredith’s DNA on the knife blade. No blood was found on the knife, and the presence of starch on the blade showed that it hadn’t been cleaned.

  As for the bra clasp, the judges doubted that the DNA profile attributed to Raffaele was indeed his, because a different interpretation might be possible given that the traces of several different individuals had been found on it. They concluded that Raffaele’s trace was ‘probably’ the result of contamination before the sample – which they recalled had been mislaid for forty-six days in the cottage – was finally retrieved by the forensic police.

  Again quoting defence consultants in order to challenge the Massei court’s verdict, the judges suggested that the bloody right footprint found on the bathmat in the cottage’s small bathroom wasn’t Raffaele’s, but perhaps Rudy’s. The Massei court had also mistakenly argued that the footprints found in the corridor, in Amanda’s bedroom and in Filomena’s bedroom – and previously attributed to Amanda and Raffaele – were shown to be tainted with blood when highlighted with the chemical Luminol. It was more likely that the Luminol had reacted to bleach, or to traces of fruit juice or vegetable soup, the judges argued.

  What’s more, there was no reason to think there had been a ‘staged burglary’ at the cottage. The intruder – the judges pointed a finger at Rudy – may have used a nail in the wall under Filomena’s window to climb up to it, and a defence consultant had shown it was possible to throw a stone through the window from a short distance.

  The Massei court had argued that bits of glass found on top of jumbles of clothes in Filomena’s room were evidence of a staged burglary. But the appeal court judges quoted Filomena herself, as well as other witnesses, as saying that the bits of glass were both on
top of and underneath the clothes. The judges argued that an intruder’s ‘obviously frenetic rummaging’ through her belongings could have caused bits of glass to end up on top of the piles of clothes. As for Raffaele telling the police that nothing had been stolen, the judges explained this was not because he had helped stage a burglary but because Amanda hadn’t noticed anything important missing when she first checked the flat.

  In rare agreement with the prosecutors, the judges acknowledged that Amanda and Raffaele had failed to prove their alibi – that they spent the night at his flat. But they also ruled that prosecutors had failed to disprove the alibi. The fact that there had been no human activity on Raffaele’s laptop between 9.10 p.m. and 5.32 a.m. didn’t rule out the couple’s presence that night. Besides, none of his other computers had been examined as their hard disks had been destroyed after police seized them. Nor did the fact that their mobile phones were either inactive or switched off during the night mean they had left the flat.

  There was nothing unusual in Amanda leaving Raffaele’s flat in the morning to go and have a shower at home, despite having had one the previous evening after the couple had sex. Raffaele’s shower wasn’t working properly, and her underwear and clothes were at the cottage.

  On the subject of Amanda and Raffaele’s embraces, and Amanda’s cartwheel and yoga exercises at the police station, the judges explained that this was due to their ‘need to find a bit of normality in a tragic situation’. There was also a simple explanation as to why Amanda had bought some underwear a couple of days later – she needed it as police had sealed off the cottage. ‘That she bought a thong … really cannot be seen as a mark of an insensitive spirit or obscene inclinations, because it’s a fashionable item of clothing which is very popular with both young and not-so-young women,’ the judges wrote. Nothing in Amanda and Raffaele’s behaviour after the murder could be seen as an indication of their guilt.

  In their final conclusions, the judges criticised the Massei court yet again. The words ‘probable’ and ‘improbable’ featured no fewer than thirty-nine times in the earlier court’s review of the evidence, the judges pointed out, adding that ‘its reconstruction of events was always based on probability.’ The motive advanced by the Massei court – ‘sexual erotic violence’ to force Meredith to yield to Rudy – was itself ‘not at all probable’.

  The judges added: ‘the sudden decision of two good, well-meaning young people to do evil for evil’s sake, and for no other reason, is all the more incomprehensible because it aims to help Rudy Guede – with whom they had no relationship and whose character and social background is different from theirs – to commit a crime.’

  The judges refused to explain why and how Meredith died. ‘It isn’t up to this court to state what really happened, nor whether one or more people carried out the crime, nor whether other investigative scenarios were neglected or not. What this court notes is only the lack of proof of the guilt of the accused,’ they wrote.

  Principal Characters

  The Investigators

  Giuliano Mignini, prosecutor

  Manuela Comodi, prosecutor

  Detective Superintendent Monica Napoleoni, head of the Homicide Squad

  Chief Detective Inspector Rita Ficarra, Homicide Squad

  Deputy Chief of Police Giacinto Profazio, head of the Flying Squad

  Chief Superintendent Marco Chiacchiera, deputy head of the Flying Squad

  Chief Detective Inspector Michele Battistelli, postal police

  Meredith Kercher

  Arline and John Kercher, Meredith’s parents

  Stephanie, Lyle and John Kercher, Meredith’s sister and brothers

  Giacomo Silenzi, Meredith’s boyfriend

  Sophie Purton, Robyn Butterworth and Amy Frost, Meredith’s friends

  Francesco Maresca and Serena Perna, the Kercher family’s lawyers

  Amanda Knox

  Edda Mellas and Curt Knox, Amanda’s parents

  Chris Mellas, Amanda’s stepfather

  Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga, Amanda’s lawyers

  Diya ‘Patrick’ Lumumba, bar-owner and Amanda’s employer

  Father Saulo Scarabattoli, prison chaplain

  Raffaele Sollecito

  Giulia Bongiorno, Marco Brusco and Luca Maori, Raffaele’s lawyers

  Rudy Guede

  Giacomo Benedetti, Rudy’s friend

  Witnesses

  Filomena Romanelli and Laura Mezzetti, Meredith’s flatmates

  Paola Grande, Filomena’s friend

  Nara Capezzali, retired neighbour

  Hekuran Kokomani, Albanian farmhand

  Antonio Curatolo, tramp

  Expert witnesses

  Luca Lalli, forensic pathologist

  Patrizia Stefanoni, biologist, Rome forensic police

  PERUGIA

  Sources

  My research for Death in Perugia began on the day the murder of Meredith Kercher was discovered, when The Sunday Times sent me to cover the case. It was a trip that was to be repeated many times over the next four years.

  I have done my best to give a voice to as many of those involved as possible, with the help of both case files and author interviews, and with the aim of writing an objective, chronological account. The book is based on the 10,000-page files of the prosecutors’ investigation, which include photographs and films of the crime scene; autopsy and forensic police reports; transcripts of witness statements; interrogations of suspects; and of Amanda Knox’s taped meetings with her family in prison. The files also contain her diaries, which were seized at the time of her arrest and later from her prison cell. I drew on a complete set of the verbatim transcripts of the first, eleven-month trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, much of which I attended; I also attended the appeal trial that followed.

  The book is also based on dozens of in-depth author interviews with prosecutors, police detectives, lawyers for Amanda, Raffaele and Rudy, forensic pathologists and other expert consultants, among others. Arline, Stephanie and Lyle Kercher gave me an interview in Perugia after the verdict of the appeal court. Amanda’s parents, Edda Mellas and Curt Knox, and her sister Deanna, granted me a lengthy interview in Seattle – their first with a non-American journalist. I also interviewed her stepfather Chris Mellas in Perugia. I met Amanda briefly during one of two visits I made to the Capanne prison outside Perugia where I also spoke to prison officials, guards, the prison chaplain and Amanda’s fellow inmates. I was also allowed access to the scene of the crime, inside the cottage where Meredith and Amanda lived.

  Meredith’s close friend Sophie Purton – the last friend to see her alive – gave me an exclusive six-hour interview at her home, and has patiently answered more questions since. Amy Frost, another close friend also speaking for the first time, answered questions by email. I have also drawn on articles written by John Kercher in several British newspapers including The Sunday Times.

  The dialogues in the book are as recorded in official transcripts, or as recalled by one or more speakers in witness statements and author interviews.

  Acknowledgements

  I owe a special debt of gratitude to the following:

  In Perugia: prosecutors Giuliano Mignini and Manuela Comodi, and detectives Giacinto Profazio and Monica Napoleoni; warmest thanks to Arline, Stephanie and Lyle Kercher for granting me an interview and to Lyle for his help with sources; the Kercher family’s lawyers Francesco Maresca and Serena Perna; Amanda Knox’s lawyers Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga; her stepfather Chris Mellas; Raffaele Sollecito’s lawyers Giulia Bongiorno, Luca Maori and Marco Brusco, and Raffaele himself for corresponding with me; Rudy Guede’s lawyers Valter Biscotti and Nicodemo Gentile; Rudy’s father Roger; Diya ‘Patrick’ Lumumba and his lawyers Carlo Pacelli and Giuseppe Sereni; Letizia Magnini, lawyer for the cottage’s owner; Mauro Bacci, Luca Lalli and Giulia Ceccarelli at the University of Perugia’s forensic medicine institute; Pasquale ‘Pisco’ Alessi; and Fabrizio Fornari, criminologist. Many thanks to t
hose who allowed me to enter the cottage at Via della Pergola in April 2009 shortly after police removed the seals.

  At the Capanne prison, which I visited in March 2009 and April 2010: governors Bernardina di Mario, Antonio Fullone and Giaccobbe Pantaleone; Fulvio Brillo, head of Perugian prison guards; Father Saulo Scarabattoli, chaplain; and the prisoners Vanessa Davis, Cinzia Gonnella, Anna Kalu and Carmela Pascucci who agreed to be interviewed.

  In Rome: Assunta Borzachiello, at the DAP prison administration service; Alberto Intini and Patrizia Stefanoni at the forensic police; Maurizio Masciopinto and Filippo Bartolozzi at the interior ministry’s press office; Vincenzo Mastronardi, criminologist; and Massimo Montebove of the SAP police trade union.

  In Seattle, which I travelled to in December 2007 and in May 2008: Edda Mellas, Curt Knox and their daughter Deanna for giving me a lengthy interview; David Marriott; Kent Hickey, president of the Seattle Preparatory School; Mike James, president of the Seattle – Perugia Sister City Association; Levi Pulkkinen, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer; Christina Siderius, the Seattle Times.

  Heartfelt thanks to my journalist colleagues, especially Ann Wise, ABC; Claudio Sebastiani, ANSA news agency; Marta Falconi and Alessandra Rizzo, AP news agency; Elio Clero Bertoldi, Corriere dell’Umbria; Fiorenza Sarzanini, Corriere della Sera, Francesca Bene, Giuseppe Castellini, Antioco Fois and Luca Fiorucci, Giornale dell’Umbria; Peter Gomez, Il Fatto Quotidiano; Italo Carmignani, Il Messaggero; Erika Pontini, La Nazione; Meo Ponte, La Repubblica; Barbie Nadeau, Newsweek; Mario Spezi, La Nazione, Andrea Vogt, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer; John Witherow, editor of The Sunday Times, Sean Ryan, my foreign editor who sent me repeatedly to Perugia and gave me time to research and write the book, Robin Morgan and Cathy Galvin, who commissioned two cover stories for The Sunday Times Magazine, and Kate Mansey, now at the newspaper, who described in detail her interview with Raffaele. Thanks also to novelist Douglas Preston and Charlie Gauvain, at Eye Film and Television.