I had forgotten about this and not sure whether it's been posted on here before, but the latest pronouncement by Amanda Knox on the tenth anniversary of her murder readers will judge for themselves:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5042679/Amanda-Knox-shares-memories-Meredith-Kercher.ht The Night Meredith Died
November 1, 2007 and the searing heat of an Umbrian summer has long since receded as Meredith Kercher wended her way along the maze of narrow streets which was Perugia, stopping to pick the tomatoes and red peppers she placed in a wicker basket and would use to make pizza in the whitewashed cottage she shared with three other girls. Perugia, set equidistant from Florence and Rome and a miniature version of both as Meredith, a popular student at the University of Foreigners passed the National Gallery, the fountains, the cathedral and campanile as she chatted to her fellow-students at the local meeting place, the Piazza Grimana.
Meredith had arranged to have dinner with English friends and they watched the film Notebook, though by 9:00pm she admitted to being tired after a Halloween party the previous night had caught up with her and would her guests mind if she went home for an early night? A girlfriend walked part of the way with her but Meredith opened the black wrought-iron gate, walked down the path and entered an unoccupied house alone as it was a public holiday and the two Italian students Laura and Filomena had returned home to visit family.
One might have thought that away from parental surveillance and with the exuberance of youth many students might be tempted into excess, but not Meredith, who had grown up in a family with a strong bond and traditional values handed down by her Indian mother. With her strong, handsome striking features, shapely figure and long, glossy hair which could have come from the pages of a hairdressing magazine and burnt siena complexion Meredith could have passed for any Italian beauty. She had struck just the right balance between work and leisure as she sat at her desk reading before getting ready for bed.
She was discovered according to official reports around 1:15pm the next day. One of the four male students who lived in the basement flat broke down the door with the Postal Police called by Filomena who had lent Meredith one of her mobile phones which had been discovered some yards away in a back garden. Her partially-clothed body lay under a duvet on the floor psychologists were later to say was the act of a woman showing pity for the deceased. Her neck was bruised on one side and her throat had been cut. Meredith had died a slow and agonizing death inhaling blood to her lungs as Prosecution argued she had been held down by more than one person, the lack of defensive injuries to her hands reinforcing this theory.
It has become plain over the last six years that one of the defendants, Ivory Coast immigrant Rudy Guede was at least in part responsible for the murder: his bloodied shoeprint was found at the scene of the crime, his fingerprints were on a pillow case and his DNA inside Meredith. As Meredith was tired that night and did not know Rudy it is difficult to imagine her having consensual sex with him. Rudy was a petty thief whose modus operandi was breaking and entering with a knife:Rudy knew the layout of the cottage as he had been in the basement to supply the male students with drugs and may have seized his opportunity with an empty house to seize what he could.
Of course for the Prosecution’s case of a sex game gone wrong they had to establish a link between Guede, Sollecito and Knox. Sollecito has always denied involvement. Yet the strongest piece of evidence is the bra clasp which has Sollecito’s DNA present at the murder scene which is difficult for the Defence to explain. Sollecito has no convincing alibi, claiming that he was typing on his computer when forensics have disproved this. He also had a knife collection at his flat,one of which had Meredith’s DNA on the blade,which is again problematic for the Defence. More circumstantial evidence arises with his collection of Japanese manga comics with their lurid depiction of wanton violence,coupled with a video of the defendant clutching a meat cleaver, face covered in white forensic suit garb.
Amanda Knox herself had some explaining to do. Her DNA had been found in the bathroom taken from blood on a tap mixed with Meredith’s. There was a strong smell of bleach inside the apartment and a local shopkeeper testified that Knox had bought bleach that morning. Had she and Sollecito been taken by surprise as Police arrived that day? Why clean up a murder scene if you have nothing to hide? Had Knox and Sollecito been involved with Guede and then locked the door with Amanda’s key, or had Guede acted alone in a burglary which went wrong, taken Meredith’s cash and credit cards and locked the room with her key? Called in for questioning a day after the murders she was executing cartwheels at the local Police station as Brits were lighting Catherine wheels and Roman candles at home. She felt no remorse for the death but why should she? She had only known Meredith a matter of weeks and had been admonished by her flatmate for being untidy and bringing strange men into the house. Had one of these men been Rudy Guede who also acted as Raffaele Sollecito’s drug dealer? After a total of fifty hours Police questioning over four days and two alleged assaults Knox accused a bar owner Patrick Lumumba of the killing, a man who was later released without charge. Her signed statement “I heard Meredith scream and covered my ears” was to keep her in prison for the next four years.
Unattractive nasty people with the illusion of competence and glamour, a feature which bestrides student as well as working life in society these days, where image is everything, where the beautiful people take over trampling everyone and everything in their wake with parents knowing very little about their offspring, whilst at the time of writing justice is once again sought for the only decent person embroiled in this case, whose home now lies 1000 miles away in a Victorian outer London cemetery.
http://youtu.be/XqCA1WlIuZA
