Amanda Knox's "interrogation" had lasted 50 hours. Neither a lawyer nor parent was present. Alone and frightened, she could not fully comprehend her situation. Romantic Italy took on a new reality. Amanda Knox got her wish, made in the careless innocence of a secure scenario in familiar Seattle, Washington. How easy it was for her very innocence to be her undoing.
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| Amanda Knox Evidence |
Smart but definitely not streetsmart, she is ignorant of the darker side of life. Nor had she ever encountered anyone like the "Prosecutor" who was to convince a Court she had killed her housemate in some kind of satanic sexual orgy.
Amanda Knox was out of her "safety net" of home and family. Beaten and sleep-deprived to exhaustion, she confesses to the crime, signs the fateful confession, and seals her fate; all this done in Italian, a language she can barely read or understand, having then been in Italy for only a few months.
Not surprising that she was eventually convicted of murder two years later and sentenced to 26 years in prison. Crime story of the decade? Cruel miscarriage of justice? Definitely, but in feng shui terms also a very major reversal of fortune, a descent into hell. Amanda Knox was portrayed as a promiscuous she-devil prone to indulging in ritualistic sex games. Twisted theories of demonic influence fueled the baroque drama of the killing. To the newspapers of the world, this was tabloid gold!
British and Italian newspapers described "Foxy Knoxy" (a nickname given to her when she was an eight year-old playing in her soccer league) as a "crazed sex killer." Headlines described her as a drug addict and a tart. Iet is every parent's nightmare that one's innocent daughter can be so heartlessly tainted and then thrown into a foreign jail this way.
FIGHTING BACK
But her parents, family, friends and University mates, almost all American, fought back. Slowly but surely Amanda Knox's plight gained momentum. A member of the Senate put the weight of his influence behind them declaring, "the case raises serious questions about the Italian justice system" and asks if "anti-Americanism" is to blame. This leads to eleven Italian lawmakers in Silvio Berlusconi's coalition demanding a probe of the Prosecutor's office. The case comes close to evolving into an international crisis. Her case is brought back to Court!
The Italian Justice system may be cumbersome but it is not unfair. The Appeal process is more lenient than in many other countries. In Italy, the Appeals Judge can retry the entire case and to the enormous relief of the Knox family, Judge Claudio Hellmann started the Appeal with an assertion of reasonable doubt. "The only thing we know for certain in this complex case, he declared, "is that Meredith was murdered."
The Judge ordered new analyses of the DNA tests by independent experts - a request that was refused, for no particular reason, during the original trial. Systematically, the Knox defense team walked and talked Judge and Jury of the Appeal Court through the case. Their arguments rested on the absence of physical evidence tying Amanda Knox to the crime or crime scene; there was also no motive.
No evidence. No motive. All the prosecution had was their theory of sex games gone wrong (when neither victim nor the accused had any history of having ever indulged in that kind of sexual activity)... but the Prosecution had Amanda's "confession". This too refuted as having been obtained under duress.
In the end, it was Amanda's own defense, her heartfelt appeal delivered in a small voice and in perfect Italian - one amongst four other languages she had learn while in prison - that rang out in that small Italian Court and resonated around the world; an appeal so clearly the cry of a soul wronged that caught the world's attention, and eventually won her the freedom she had begged for.
The first time she addressed the Court directly, her back was stiff; her hands were tightly clasped before her. She started tentatively in tremulous Italian. Occasionally she paused, struggling to compose herself. "For more than three and a half years, I have been in prison as an innocent person," she told the Court. "This has been extremely frustrating for me. It has been draining. I don't want to remain there, unjustly, for my entire life. I recall the beginning of this whole thing, when I was free. I think of how young I was then, how I didn't understand anything..."
In the airy pomposity of the courtroom and following on months of bureaucratic delays that forced her to stay in prison all through summer (Italian courts don't meet until mid-September), Amanda's small voice, powerfully expressed her raw suffering shook everyone in court that day including the world's press camped there to cover the personal drama unfolding before them.
AMANDA SPOKE AGAIN AT THE CLOSING
Speaking more confidently this time and occasionally pausing for breath, overwhelmed by so much being at stake, she nevertheless made an impassioned plea for freedom.
"Esteemed people of the court, it has been said many times that I am a person different to what I am. I am the same person I was four years ago, the same person - the only thing that distinguishes me from four years ago is the four years that I have suffered."
I have had to face accusations, injustice and suggestions without foundation and I am paying with my life for something that I did not do.
"I am not what they say I am. I am not perverse, violent, disrespectful towards life, people. These things do not apply to me and I have not done the things that have been suggested. "I did not kill, I did not rape, I did not steal. I was not there. I was not present at this crime."
"I had never faced such tragedy, suffering. I didn't know how to tackle it, how to interpret it. When we learned Meredith was dead, we just could not believe it. How was this possible? Then I felt scared. A person who I was sharing my life with, who had the bedroom next to me, she was killed in our house and if I was there that night I could have been killed."
"I wasn't there. I was at Raffaele's. I did not have anyone and thankfully he was there, I had no one for me. I called my aunt but at that moment it was only him. I had a sense of duty towards justice, the authorities who I put my trust in. They were there to find the guilty and to protect us. I put my faith in them absolutely. I made myself available for them in those days but I was betrayed - the night of 5/6 November [2007] I was pressured, stressed and manipulated."
"I have never done what they say I have done. It is not as they say it was. I shared my life with Meredith. We had a friendship, she was worried for me when I went to work, she was always gentle with me. Meredith was killed and I have always wanted justice for her. I am not fleeing from the truth and have never fled. I insist on the truth. I insist after four desperate years for our innocence because it is true."
"I want to go home. I want to return to my life. I don't want to be punished and deprived of my life, future, for something I have not done because I am innocent. Raffaele is also innocent. We deserve our freedom. We have never done anything not to deserve it. I have so much respect for the court and the attention you have had during this trial. Thank you. I ask for justice."
HAPPY AT LAST
Several hours later in October 2011, the Judge and Jury overturned her conviction of 2009 and set her flee. You will be hearing a lot more of Amanda Knox for of course she will now become a media star of mega proportions. She is no longer the naive, frightened innocent abroad. She has survived four years of prison on a strange land. From somewhere deep within her, Amanda pulled out the strength and the spirit within to not just survive but also to thrive in her sordid surroundings.
In jail, she bonded with her prison mates, started a band and learn several languages, all the while focusing clearly on her goal to get out of incarceration and regain her freedom. The newspapers and magazines are full of her now, and of course soon there will be books and movies. Nothing fictional can match the raw emotional appeal of Amanda's story.
I wrote this story because I find her courage and tenacity very inspiring. She was not street smart, but confronted with the dark side, she dug her heels in. Determined to survive, she fought to regain her freedom and her life. She was naive and foolish, but now she knows. She not only said all the right things now but she said them all in the right way, allowing her natural love of life to shine through. And so she has won her freedom. As we write this, she is safely back home and happily painting in the fields, catching up with a former boyfriend and embracing the life she almost lost. To find out more, you can check out Amanda Knox Evidence.