Amanda Knox

(CBS News) Following the acquittal of Amanda Knox this week, "48 Hours Mystery" will broadcast "Amanda Knox: The Untold Story," on Saturday, Oct. 8 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Correspondent Peter Van Sant has covered this dramatic case through the years from Perugia, Italy, and has now followed Amanda and her family to Seattle. His report reveals details of the cruel manipulation and sexual intimidation Knox endured while behind bars, in her own words, from a letter that she wrote.

Knox wrote that a high-ranking prison administrator ordered her into his office alone, at night, to talk about sex. Amanda eventually came to believe that the administrator's real motive was to intimidate her and provoke her to say something that would support the prosecution's theory that she really was a sex-crazed killer.

Investigative journalist and CBS News Consultant Bob Graham, reads from Amanda's letter: "'He was fixated on the topic of sex, with whom I'd done it, how I liked it, if I would like to do it with him. When I realized that he really wanted to talk to me about sex I would try to change the subject...

"'I realize that he was testing me to see if I reacted badly, to understand me personally. He wanted to get a reaction or some information from me. I did not get the seriousness of the situation.'"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/05/48hours/main20116046.shtml

When the Kerchers fought to get the corrupt judges in the first trial to block the defense from challenging fake evidence, they contributed directly to two innocent people spending two years longer in prison, and they contributed directly to Meredith's killer getting an extremely light sentence.

The blame for that goes to the Italian judges who ordered Amanda and Raffaele to spend the trial process in prison in violation of Italian and European law, and who went out of their way for so long to block the defense from challenging the fake evidence.

Truth of this terrible tale is that Knox is a victim too
(By Christina Patterson, Belfast Telegraph, 7 October 2011)

In the end, it took two minutes. After four years in a prison cell shared with a killer, it took two minutes for an Italian court to overturn the verdict that had turned a young American woman into one of the most famous murderers in the world.

It was almost unbearable to watch. It was almost surreal to see the TV crews, and satellite vans, squeezed between honey-coloured buildings in streets that were built for horses long before Perugino taught Raphael how to paint his angels and his crucifixion.

It was terrible, of course, to see the mother, and sister, and brother, of a young woman who had been left to bleed to death after having her throat slashed like a pig, walking in front of the world's cameras into a courtroom, as if walking in front of cameras was a normal thing to do when the smiling girl you loved would never come back.

But it was terrible too, to see the white face of the young woman in the black hooded jacket, who had waited, waited, waited for the words that were coming, and who looked as if she couldn't carry the burden of that wait for one moment more.

When the judge spoke, in terms that some people at first found so confusing that at least one newspaper briefly ran a story on its website saying that the young woman had lost her appeal, we couldn't see her face.

It's hard to imagine the path that took her from dreamy student life in the southern sun to a prison cell where she was told she'd spend 26 years for a crime she didn't commit.

It's hard to imagine the path for her then boyfriend of less than two weeks, too, a young man whom the world has largely ignored.

But the police - and justice - weren't on their side.

The man in charge of the investigation into the death of Meredith Kercher, Giuliano Mignini, insisted, even when a young man whose bloody handprints were found on Meredith's pillow confessed to being in the house, that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were the key movers in the murder.

It was Mignini who was happy to build a case on 'evidence' collected so clumsily that videos of it taking place drew howls of horror in court. There were, according to a report, more than 50 errors in the original case.

You can see why a prosecutor might think that the young woman and her boyfriend might be involved in the case and why he might want to find evidence that supported his view.

But it's quite hard to see why he would stick to that case, even when the evidence for it seemed to be extremely flimsy, and why he never seemed to consider the possibility that lack of evidence might mean he was wrong.

You can just about see why a prosecutor who was concerned with his professional reputation would be determined to stick with a story that seemed to get crazier every day.

Or perhaps it was just because, once there's a story, even if it's a crazy story, and even if it's not all that clear where it came from, that story seems to harden into something that feels like the truth.

And so it's important that story doesn't change, because if something that feels like a kind of truth can change, then anything can change. Perhaps that's why the Kerchers, too, seemed reluctant to believe Mignini might be wrong.

On Monday, they talked about the 'PR machine' and 'hype' that surrounded Amanda Knox's appeal, as if she was trying to market a pop album, and not trying to escape a life in jail.

They were right to remind the world of the girl at the heart of this terrible story, the girl they said had been "hugely forgotten".

But terrible stories don't have just one victim. "In this case," said Amanda Knox's lawyer, "there is no winner". Just a dead girl and a heartbroken family.

And two young people who are only just beginning an escape from hell.

Bless your manners Robert and your patience but I think you're crazy to be showing this guy any respect, he doesn't warrant it.

...

I'm sorry Robert I'm all for diplomacy and tact but this guy deserves no respect.

I do not think all goodwill must be deserved.

oralloy wrote:

When the Kerchers fought to get the corrupt judges in the first trial to block the defense from challenging fake evidence, they contributed directly to two innocent people spending two years longer in prison, and they contributed directly to Meredith's killer getting an extremely light sentence.

OK... so just for one minute, put yourself in the Kercher's shoes, however abhorrent that may feel for you, try it.

You, for a couple a minutes, are a Kercher. You have been told by the police, the system, the judges, whoever - that your daughter has been murdered by x, x, and x. You have been shown pictures, given details, seen your child/your loved one/your sister with her throat cut etc... you have been told repeatedly x, x and x did it. You've been told there was evidence. You are trying to get your head around your daughters death - each day, grieving and being told x, x, and x did it. You are having nightmares, you are feeling guilt of not being able to stop it, you are being told how it happened, how brutal it was, seen it, seen your daughtered murdered... and x, x and x did it.

Would you honestly believe that when x and x say that they didn't do it, after being told over and over and over it was them, by the authorities, by the prosecutors who are even now trying to take it to another court because the prosecutors, the police believe x and x did do it - in your grief and your worst possible nightmare scenario, that you are going to turn around and believe the outcry from x and x.

I truly don't think any parent would.

You Oralloy are for the defense. For x and x. The Kercher family are the victims here too - can you not see that?

I don't see how you can blame the Kercher's for any of this.

No. The judge, the jury, the system make those decisions.





You answer your own question Oralloy.

oralloy wrote:

The blame for that goes to the Italian judges who ordered Amanda and Raffaele to spend the trial process in prison in violation of Italian and European law, and who went out of their way for so long to block the defense from challenging the fake evidence.

Feel angry at the system and for any injustices.

Anger directed towards the Kercher's is unwarranted.

My first contretemps with Oralloy were about atom bombs, many years ago on a2k..

I have avoided him ever since. Years where I skipped him.

I'm also uniquely knowing about atom bombs, as my father was head of photo for the bikini bomb tests, and rode in the plane that shot down into Baker.

I consider Oralloy a fountain of hate.
His hate to Italy throughout this thread is disgusting.

I also believe it's wrong to stay silent in the face of evil.

What's the saying... " All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"

Oh and I know that's OTT here but still my blood boils at the hatred he spews.

I think I'll stick to not bothering to get involved, It's not worth it and neither is he.

Italian appeals court says why it cleared Knox
(By COLLEEN BARRY | Associated Press | December 16, 2011)

MILAN, Italy — No murder weapon. Faulty DNA. No motive. Even the time of death was wrong by nearly an hour. The Italian appeals court that cleared Amanda Knox in the killing of her roommate explained its ruling on Thursday: The evidence just didn't hold up.

In a 143-page document that criticized nearly every stage of the investigation that led to the conviction of Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, the appeals court said the lower court didn't even prove they were in the house when Knox's British roommate, Meredith Kercher, was killed.

Kercher was found slain in a pool of blood in the house she shared with Knox in the Italian city of Perugia.

Knox and Sollecito, who had just begun dating, were arrested several days later, then convicted in what prosecutors portrayed as a drug-fueled sexual assault. They were sentenced to 26 years and 25 years, respectively, in proceedings that made headlines around the world.

The Perugia appellate court, which acquitted the two in October after reviewing the lower court's evidence and conducting new hearings of its own, criticized the "building blocks" of the conviction and the failure to identify a motive.

The guilty verdict "was not corroborated by any objective element of evidence and in itself was not, in fact, probable: the sudden choice of two young people, good and open to other people, to do evil for evil's sake, just like that, without another reason," wrote presiding Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann.

Still, the three-judge panel stopped short of saying what actually might have happened the night of Nov. 1, 2007. "It is not up to this court to speculate about what actually took place," Hellmann wrote, "or whether one or more people carried out the crime."

A third defendant, Ivory Coast-born drifter Rudy Guede, was convicted in a separate trial of sexually assaulting and stabbing Kercher. His 16-year prison sentence — reduced on appeal from an initial 30 years — was upheld by Italy's highest court in 2010.

The appeals court said there was no evidence that Knox and Sollecito helped Guede assault and kill Kercher, and expressed incredulity that they would have committed such a crime with a man they had little contact with. "There is no evidence of phone calls or text messages between the three," he wrote.

Hellmann also ridiculed the prosecution's efforts to demonize the 24-year-old Knox because she bought thong underwear days after the murder instead of more modest apparel, calling it "a garment in style and widely worn by young and not-so-young women."

Such a purchase, he wrote, "cannot be considered a show of an insensitive spirit or obscene inclinations."

He also defended Knox's behavior at a police station, where she did cartwheels and cuddled and kissed Sollecito while awaiting questioning.

Such displays could not be construed as evidence of guilt, he wrote, adding: "There are numerous ways ... to react to tragedy. An exchange of tenderness and even an exhibition of gymnastics can be explained by the need to find through gestures and behavior a bit of normality in a tragic situation."

The only elements of the prosecution case that were proven, the judge said, were a charge of slander against Knox, who was convicted of falsely accusing a bar owner of killing Kercher, and the fact that Knox and Sollecito's alibis did not match.

That the alibis were out of synch "is very different" from the prosecutors' claim of false alibis, he wrote.

And as for implicating Diya "Patrick" Lumumba after hours of intense police questioning, Knox did so because "she was convinced that was what the police wanted her to do: to name a guilty person," he said.

"The only elements that are sustained don't allow the belief, even when put together, that the guilt of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for the crime of murder ... has been proven," the judge said.

Prosecutors had contended that a kitchen knife found at Sollecito's house was the murder weapon, saying it matched wounds on Kercher's body and carried traces of Kercher's DNA on the blade and Knox's on the handle.

However, a court-ordered review discredited the DNA evidence, saying there were glaring errors in evidence-collecting and that below-standard testing and possible contamination raised doubts over the DNA traces on the blade and on Kercher's bra clasp.

The appellate court also contradicted the lower court's time of death, putting it nearly an hour earlier, at around 10:15 p.m. instead of after 11 p.m.

Requested more #FOIA records today to complete #amandaknox case files before Cassation.

Presidential candidate Rick Perry intentionally executed an innocent man in 2004.

Oralloy wrote:

Presidential candidate Rick Perry intentionally executed an innocent man in 2004.

Are you doing a thread on this?

What might we expect to see for Perry because of this - bamboo shoots under his fingernails; cannonballs hung from his scrotum with alligator clips; ... ?