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Meredith Kercher
Photograph released by the police and used in early news reports about the murder.
Born	Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher 28 December 1985 Southwark, London, England
Died	1 November 2007(2007-11-01) (aged 21) Perugia, Italy
Cause of death	Knife wounds
Nationality	British
Other names	Mez (nickname)
Alma mater	University of Leeds
Occupation	University exchange student
Known for	Murder victim

The murder of Meredith Kercher occurred in Perugia, Italy, on 1 November 2007. The following day, police discovered the body of the 21-year-old British university exchange student in the upstairs flat that she shared with three other young women. Rudy Hermann Guede, a resident of Perugia, Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian student, and Amanda Knox, an American student who shared a flat with Kercher, were convicted of the sexual assault and murder of Kercher. Sollecito and Knox have appealed their cases and a new trial began in December 2010. Guede is serving a sentence of 16 years, while Sollecito and Knox are appealing their convictions for 25 and 26 year sentences, respectively.

The case received much media attention in Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. The case has been widely described as controversial, with questions raised over the convictions, coverage in the news media and the conduct of the police investigation and prosecution.

Meredith Kercher

Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, known to her friends as "Mez", was born on 28 December 1985 in Southwark, London, England, and lived in Coulsdon, South London. She had two older brothers and an older sister. Her father is a freelance journalist, and her mother is a housewife, born in India.

Kercher attended the Old Palace School in Croydon and then she took a degree in European Studies at the University of Leeds. At the time of her murder, she was studying for one year at the University of Perugia as part of the ERASMUS student exchange programme. She appeared in a music video for singer Kristian Leontiou's song "Some Say" shortly before her death.

In Perugia, she shared a flat with Amanda Knox and two Italian women. Kercher's funeral was held on 14 December 2007 at Croydon Parish Church, with more than 300 people in attendance. She has been awarded a posthumous degree by the University of Leeds.

People charged with the murder

Rudy Guede

Rudy Hermann Guede (born 26 December 1986, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire) was aged 20 at the time of the murder. He had come to Perugia at the age of five with his father, who worked as a labourer in the 1990s. At the age of 16, when his father left Italy, Guede was informally adopted by the family of a local businessman. Guede had acquired joint Italian nationality and sporadically studied accounting and hotelkeeping. He also played basketball for the Perugia youth team in the 2004–2005 season. He often stayed with his aunt who lived in Lecco, about 50 km north of Milan, and sometimes worked in Milan bars, returning occasionally to Perugia. Though he had no criminal record at the time of the murder, Guede was well-known to the police as a drug dealer and petty criminal by the time Kercher was murdered. Nick Squires of The Daily Telegraph states, "He became a suspect in the murder two weeks after Miss Kercher's body was found, when DNA tests on a bloody fingerprint and on samples taken from the body were found to match samples which police already had on file following his earlier arrests."

Amanda Knox

Amanda Marie Knox (born 9 July 1987, Seattle, Washington) was, at the time of Kercher's murder, a 20-year-old University of Washington language student. She was in Perugia attending the University for Foreigners for one year, studying Italian, German and creative writing. In Perugia she lived in the same shared flat as Kercher. Knox met her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito at a classical music concert on 25 October 2007.

Raffaele Sollecito

Raffaele Sollecito (born 26 March 1984, Giovinazzo, Bari) was 23 years old at the time of the murder, and nearing the completion of a degree in computer engineering at the University of Perugia, which he finished while awaiting trial in prison. He is from an affluent family, the son of a urologist from Bari.

Events surrounding the murder

The relevance of particular information in (or previously in) this article or section is disputed. The information may have been removed or included by an editor as a result. Please see discussion on the talk page considering whether its inclusion is warranted. (March 2011)

On the evening of Thursday, 1 November 2007, All Saints Day (Italian: Ognissanti) and a national holiday in Italy, the upstairs flat where Kercher lived was empty; one of her Italian flatmates was out of town and Knox was at her boyfriend's flat. The four young Italian men who shared the downstairs flat had also left town.

Knox was expecting to work at the Le Chic pub that night, but at 8:18 pm her boss Patrick Lumumba sent a text message that business was slow and she wasn't needed. She responded at 8:35 pm by texting "Okay see you later good evening!" in Italian. When a friend stopped by Sollecito's flat at 8:45 pm, Knox answered the door.

That evening, Kercher dined with three other young English women at one of their homes and watched the movie The Notebook on DVD. Kercher said she was tired and wanted an early night. She borrowed a history book, saying it would be returned before 10 am the next day, and left to walk home with one of her friends, Sophie. Parting company with Sophie at 8:55 pm, she walked the remaining  500 yards (460 m) to her flat alone. According to early investigations and autopsy, Kercher died in the flat between 9–11 pm.

At 12:07 pm the following day, Knox called Kercher's UK mobile phone, ringing for 16 seconds (Knox testified Meredith always carried that phone in expecting calls about her mother's recent illness). A minute later, she called her flatmate Filomena, telling her that she had returned to the flat and found the front door open, and blood in her bathroom. Knox called Kercher's second mobile phone and tried the first phone again. The flatmate called Knox back three times. During the last call that started at 12:34 pm, Knox said that the window in the flatmate's room was broken and the room was a mess. At 12:47 pm, Knox called her mother in Seattle who told her to call the police. Sollecito then made two calls to the Italian emergency number 112 at 12:51 and 12:54 pm. He reported a break in, blood, a locked door and a missing roommate. During this call, Knox can be heard giving the address for the flat. Before the Carabinieri arrived in response to these calls, two officers of the Italian Post and Communications Police, came to investigate the discovery of Kercher's mobile phones near another house. Knox and Sollecito were standing outside and told the police they were waiting for the Carabinieri, a window had been broken and there were bloodstains in the bathroom.

As Knox showed the two officers the room with the broken window, the locked door and the blood in the bathroom, the flatmate she had called earlier arrived with three friends. The flatmate was allowed to enter her room where the alleged burglary had taken place and remove her laptop. It was later confiscated by police. The cell phones were confirmed as belonging to Kercher. The Carabinieri had not yet arrived and the Post and Communications Police officers were reluctant to break down the locked door. Around 1:15 pm one of the flatmate's friends kicked it open. Kercher was found lying on the floor covered by a duvet soaked in blood, with one foot toward the doorway. The officers ordered everyone out of the flat, and the cottage was secured as a crime scene.

The upstairs flat

The house at Via della Pergola 7 (43°6′53″N 12°23′29.6″E / 43.11472°N 12.391556°E / 43.11472; 12.391556) was investigated. The house was on an open hillside below the city centre, near a motorway on the edge of town. Kercher shared the upstairs flat with Knox and two long-time Italian friends who rented the flat in August 2007. It was accessed via a path at the top of some steps, to a parking lot, and included a foyer, a kitchen-living room area, two shared bathrooms with sink, toilet and bidet (one had a bathtub, the other, adjacent to Kercher's room, a shower) and four bedrooms. There was a laundry room, with a washing machine, next to the larger bathroom. The outdoor balcony extended along the main hallway, which opened via windowed doors to the outside, overlooking the town hillside and valley below.

Kercher rented one of the upstairs bedrooms since she had arrived in late August. Amanda Knox rented the remaining room, and returning from Germany, moved in on 20 September 2007, when she met Kercher.

The house was closed as a crime scene from 2 November 2007 until April 2009 when a Knox-Sollecito jury visited, then remodeled and re-occupied at the end of 2009.

Police interviews

On 5 November 2007, Sollecito said in a statement to police he was not sure whether Knox had spent the night at his house on the night of the murder. The police then questioned Knox, who had accompanied him to the police station. Starting at 11 pm that evening, she was questioned first by the police alone and, later that night, in the presence of a prosecutor. During these interviews, she said that she had gone to the flat with Patrick Lumumba, the owner of a bar-restaurant named Le Chic, at which she occasionally worked. She said that she had been in the kitchen when he committed the murder.

In a written statement the following day, Knox wrote: "In regards to this "confession" that I made last night, I want to make clear that I'm very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion. Not only was I told I would be arrested and put in jail for 30 years, but I was also hit in the head when I didn't remember a fact correctly." In June 2009 she repeated that description of her interrogation at trial, while a police officer testified that Knox had only been questioned "firmly but politely". Knox's lawyer, summing up at the end of her trial, stated that the interviews over the course of several days had lasted a total of 53 hours, causing "stress and fear". The police have denied that Knox was mistreated and she has been charged with slander in a separate trial.

Knox was arrested later on the morning of 6 November. Some time afterwards she made a written note to the police, partially retracting her earlier statements, explaining that she doubted her statements because they were made "under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion" and that she had been struck whenever her memory appeared to be failing her. She "stood by" her accusation of Lumumba, but said that she could not clearly remember whether she was at her flat or Sollecito's house at the time of the murder. She denied involvement in the murder.

Lumumba was arrested on 6 November 2007 as a result of Knox's statements. He was detained for two weeks until the arrest of Guede. Initially, doubts about his alibi were reported in the press, but ultimately he was completely exonerated.

Arrest of Guede

A manhunt for a fourth suspect began on 19 November 2007 after a bloody handprint found on the victim's pillow was matched to Rudy Guede. Guede had left Perugia by train a few days after the murder. Interpol traced a computer which he used in Germany to access Facebook and reply to a message from a Daily Telegraph journalist. In his message, Guede said that he was aware that he was a suspect and wanted to clear his name. On 20 November 2007, the German transport police arrested Guede on a train near Mainz, where he was apprehended for travelling without a ticket. When questioned, he stated that he was on his way back to Italy to give himself up. He was extradited to Italy on 6 December 2007.

Evidence

Forensic evidence

Kercher's body was found on the floor of her bedroom, with blood in various locations in the room. Her superior thyroid artery had been severed by a stab wound and she died due to inhalation of her own blood. Her hyoid bone was broken, indicating that she had been choked before she was stabbed. There were also signs of sexual assault. Her body had been disrobed and moved some time after death.

DNA matching that of Guede was found on and inside Kercher's body, on her shirt and bra and on her handbag. A bloody handprint found on a pillow under the victim's back was matched to Guede.

A severed piece of Kercher's bra, including its metal hooks, revealed traces of her DNA and that of Sollecito. Knox's lawyers have argued that DNA evidence had been contaminated during the investigation at the crime scene and when the investigators accidentally moved the evidence during the 49-day delay in retrieving the samples. The judge presiding over Knox and Sollecito's appeal has ordered a reexamination of the evidence.

Luminol revealed footprints in the flat, which the prosecution argued were compatible with the feet of Knox and Sollecito. Knox's DNA was found mixed with Kercher's blood elsewhere in the apartment. A further shoe print, believed by prosecutors to be a woman's, was found under the body. It was the right size to be Knox's, although it was never matched to her footwear. An expert defence witness stated that this was a partial print that matched the pattern of Rudy Guede's right shoe.

Knox's DNA was found on a kitchen knife recovered from Sollecito's flat, and the prosecution stated that Kercher's DNA was on the blade. Prosecution witnesses stated that the knife could have made one of the three wounds on Kercher's neck. At trial, Knox's lawyers argued that she used knives for cooking at Sollecito's apartment. A group of American forensic specialists wrote an open letter in 2009 expressing concern that procedures used by most laboratories in the United States to ensure accurate results were not followed in this case. They stated in particular that a chemical test for blood was negative when run on the knife, that the the amounts of other DNA were enough only for a low-level, partial DNA profile and that it is unlikely that all traces of blood could have been removed from the knife while retaining the DNA that was discovered.

Apart from the disputed findings about the knife, there was no forensic evidence directly indicating that Knox had been in the bedroom where Kercher was murdered. Knox's fingerprints were not found in Kercher's bedroom, nor her own bedroom.

Investigators argued that an apparent break-in at the flat had been staged, partly because the window seemed to have been broken after the room had been ransacked.

In December 2010, the judge at Knox and Sollecito's appeal ordered a review of the disputed DNA evidence relating to the knife and the bra clasp.

Prosecution and defence arguments

In the Knox and Sollecito trial, the prosecution sought to prove that a break-in at the murder scene had been staged. An officer testified that shards of glass from the broken window were found on top of a computer and clothes that had been strewn around the room, suggesting that the window had been broken after the room had been ransacked.

Police evidence was presented showing that Knox and Sollecito did not have provable alibis for the time of the murder. Sollecito maintained that he was at his apartment, using his computer, but police computer analysts testified that his computer had not been used between 9:10 on the evening of the murder and 5:32 the next morning. Knox has maintained that she was with Sollecito at the time, but in his statement to police, he said that he could not remember if she was with him or not. Their version of events was contradicted by a homeless heroin-addict who testified that he had seen Knox and Sollecito chatting animatedly on a basketball court around five times, between 9.30 and midnight on the night of the murder. The witness, who has appeared as a witness in a number of murder trials, contradicted his testimony on the time and place he saw Knox and Sellecito several times during the appeals trial.A Perugia shopkeeper testified that Knox had gone to his supermarket at 7:45 on the morning after the murder, at a time when Knox was, according to her account, still at Sollecito's. However, during the initial police interview the shopkeeper was not asked if Knox had been in his shop that day and first informed police of his recollection concerning Knox several months after the crime occurred. A worker in the shop testified that she had not seen Knox.

Knox told the court that she had been with Sollecito in his apartment on the night of the murder. The defence stated that, despite having put forward several different theories, the prosecution had produced no convincing evidence of a motive for murder. Knox testified that she regarded Kercher as her friend and had no reason to kill her.

The defence sought to show that Guede could have been a lone killer. A school director testified that he had been caught with a stolen 16-inch knife inside a closed Milan school on 27 October 2007, and was also in possession of a laptop PC and a mobile phone previously stolen by somebody from a Perugia solicitors' office, burgled with a rock breaking a window. Guede said that he had bought both the stolen laptop and phone at a railway station in Milan. The school director testified that a small amount of money was also missing after she found Guede looking inside a cabinet in the school office. An expert witness testified that the window of Kercher's flat had been broken from the outside and presented a video of stones shattering similar windows.

Guede trial and appeals

Trial

Guede elected for a "fast-track" trial which began on 16 October 2008, presided over by Judge Paolo Micheli. In this way he exchanged the right to test the evidence in a full trial for a more lenient sentence, if found guilty. The trial was held in closed session, with no reporters present. He was charged with murder, sexual assault and theft.

Guede stated he had met Kercher the previous night, on Halloween, and had arranged a "romantic" date with her the next day. However, some witnesses at his trial said they were with Meredith on Halloween night and never saw her talk to him. Guede said that he went to the cottage the next day where he and Kercher became intimate, but he developed stomach pains and crossed to the large bathroom. At the toilet, listening with iPod earphones, he stated he heard Meredith's screams, ran to the back bedroom, and found a man with a knife standing over her bloodied body. Guede stated he struggled with the man, who then fled while saying in perfect Italian, "Trovato negro, trovato colpevole; andiamò" ("Found negro, found guilty; let's go"). Guede also said the man was accompanied by a woman whose voice he heard but whose face he could not see.

On 28 October 2008, Guede was found guilty of the murder and sexual assault of Kercher and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The court found that Guede's version of events did not match the forensic evidence, finding that that he could not explain why 5 of his shoe prints in Kercher's blood were found on the single bed pillow, under the disrobed body.

Appeals

In his first appeal trial, Guede stated that, while in the bathroom, he had heard Knox's voice arguing with Kercher about some missing money in the bedroom. He further said that when he glanced out of the window, he saw the silhouette of Knox leaving the house.

On 22 December 2009, the Corte d'Appello upheld Guede's convictions but cut his sentence to 16 years. In March 2010, the court issued a detailed report of its ruling, explaining that it had reduced Guede's sentence by 14 years because he was the only one of the three defendants to apologise to the Kercher family for his actions.

In May 2010, Guede launched a second and final appeal to the Court of Cassation; the hearing was subsequently fixed for 16 December 2010. On 16 December 2010 Corte di Cassazione confirmed the verdict and sentence of 16 years.

Knox and Sollecito trial and appeals

Committal hearings

Knox and Sollecito were indicted in October 2008 by Judge Micheli. Micheli concluded that Kercher had been sexually assaulted and then murdered by multiple attackers. He also concluded that the apparent break-in had been faked and that one or more people had returned to the crime scene, rearranged the body, and staged the fake break-in some time after the murder. Judge Micheli also believed that it was suspicious that Sollecito called the Carabinieri military police, saying that a burglary had occurred but "nothing had been taken" when other flatmates had not yet returned to check their rooms for missing items. He also found suspicious Knox's statement that she took a shower in a room with blood on the floor.

Following the court session, Sollecito’s lawyer Luca Maori described the prosecution's theory on the motive for the murder as being part of a "satanic rite" and this was widely reported in the press, some of whom linked this with the fact that the murder occurred on the day after Halloween. However, Judge Micheli dismissed this motive as fantasy and made it clear that the committal for trial of the two suspects was not based on this theory.

Trial

The trial of Knox and Sollecito began on 16 January 2009, before judge Giancarlo Massei, deputy judge Beatrice Cristiani and six lay judges at the Corte d'Assise of Perugia, with considerable media attention. They had been charged with murder, sexual assault, simulating a crime (burglary), carrying a knife and theft of 300 euros, two credit cards and two mobile phones.

Knox was represented by Luciano Ghirga and Carlo Dalla Vedova, Sollecito by Giulia Bongiorno. The head prosecutor was Guiliano Mignini, assisted by Manuela Comodi. Since the trial, Mignini has been convicted of "abuse of office" in an unrelated case - sentenced to 16 months in prison by a Florence court for tapping the phones of police officers and journalists investigating the still unsolved Monster of Florence case. He has protested his innocence, and remains in office, pending an appeal.

Rudy Guede was called by the prosecution to testify but asserted his right to silence. During the first session, Judge Massei rejected a request by the Kercher family to hold the trial behind closed doors, ruling that the trial would be public with closed sessions where appropriate.

After nearly six months of hearings, the trial was shut down early for summer vacation when Judge Massei ordered the prosecution to release to the defence previously withheld biological evidence. On 14 September 2009, the defence requested that the murder indictments of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito be thrown out due to the length of time that the prosecution had withheld evidence. Judge Massei rejected the defence’s request.

Towards the end of November, the prosecution and defence began summing up their cases. On 4 December 2009, after 13 hours of deliberations, Knox was convicted by a panel comprising two judges and six jurors of all charges, except theft and was sentenced to 26 years in prison. Sollecito was found guilty of all five charges attributed to him and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. According to the jurors the verdict was unanimous.

Judges' report

On 4 March 2010, the Corte d'Assise of Perugia released a 427-page report, detailing its rationale in reaching its verdicts. The Court determined that Guede had been supported by Knox and Sollecito in subduing Kercher after she resisted his sexual advances. It was noted that Knox and Sollecito had consumed hashish and been reading sexually explicit and violent comics collected by Sollecito, which were alleged to have influenced their behaviour. The court ruled Knox and Sollecito acted without premeditation, and that there was no grudge motivating the crime.

The judges concluded that Knox and Sollecito had stabbed Kercher in the neck using two different knives, but after the murder they had covered the body with a duvet in an act of repentance. The court also stated that a bloody footprint found on a bathroom mat was made by Sollecito, while a footprint in a bedroom was made by Knox. The Court further believed that Knox and Sollecito had staged the apparent break-in at the house to make it appear that Kercher had been killed by an intruder and that Knox had attempted to shift the blame by falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba.

Knox/Sollecito appeals

In April 2010, appeals were filed by the prosecution and both Knox's and Sollecito's defence teams. The prosecution assert that the current sentences are too lenient and are seeking to increase them to life sentences. Matters on which the defence are appealing relate to Knox's questioning by police and the DNA and other forensic evidence. They also intend to produce a new witness.

The appeals are proceeding as trial de novo which started on 11 December 2010 before the Appellate Court of Assizes, presided over by Claudio Pratillo Hellman. On 18 December 2010, the court announced it would re-examine the DNA evidence used to convict Knox and Sollecito, appointing two experts from the Sapienza University of Rome to conduct the review.

In late March 2011, a key prosecution witness used to place Knox and Sollecito near the crime scene on the night of the murder admitted to being a homeless heroin addict. He later contradicted himself regarding the dates, times and details regarding when he may have seen Knox and Sollecito.

On 26 March, media reports surfaced claiming that forensic investigators on the case had been unable to find enough genetic material on the knife that Knox and Sollecito are alleged to have used to stab Kercher. News outlets reported that Kercher's bra clasp, linking Sollecito to the crime, was judged to be too rusty to be re-examined.

Media coverage

The murder and associated trials resulted in worldwide media coverage, especially in Italy, Great Britain and the United States, the home countries of Sollecito, Kercher and Knox, respectively.

Some commentators have criticised the Italian legal process, including Donald Trump, Timothy Egan and journalist Judy Bachrach. FOX News commentators Ann Coulter and Jeanine Pirro have viewed such criticism as misguided.

The Kercher family have made clear their views that the trial was fair, but have generally avoided much media attention. On 2 December 2010, Kercher's journalist father, John, writing in the Daily Mail, condemned Knox's elevation to "celebrity" status as "utterly despicable," and that the "Foxy Knoxy" nickname, "trivialises the awfulness of her offence." He maintained that to the Kercher family, Knox is, "unequivocally culpable. As far as we are concerned, she has been ­convicted of taking our precious Meredith’s life in the most hideous and bloody way."

Alex Wade, writing in The Times, was critical: "If by some cruel miracle a British judge had found himself presiding over 12 good men and true ... it is inconceivable that he would not have made strong, telling directions to acquit". Libby Purves, writing in the same newspaper, said "both evidence and reconstruction look pretty convincing" and described the American campaign for Amanda Knox as "almost libellously critical of the Italian court".

A number of sources have argued that the pretrial publicity and tabloid-style coverage tainted the public perception of Knox and may have prejudiced the trial. Unlike standard practice in some other countries, the professional judges and lay jurors who decide the verdicts in Italian court cases are not sequestered during the trial and are allowed to read news articles about the case. The lawyers filed complaints with a Milan court and with Italy's privacy watchdog.

News coverage of the Kercher murder trials by Italian and British tabloid newspapers has been criticized as consisting of "character assassination" and "demonisation" of the defendants. Author Candace Dempsey, in her book Murder in Italy, lists a number of examples of what she calls falsehoods and distortions in the press reports about the case.

Support for Knox and Sollecito

Knox's family and a number of supporters maintain that she and Sollecito have been unjustly convicted.

The Knox family

Knox's family engaged the services of David Marriott of Gogerty Stark Marriott, a Seattle-based public relations firm, to handle the public relations aspects of their campaign. The family has spoken with a number of journalists and have appeared on several TV talk shows, such as the Oprah Winfrey Show on 23 February 2010.

Senator Maria Cantwell

On 4 December 2009, the day the verdict on Knox and Sollecito was announced, Maria Cantwell, US Senator for Washington, released a statement expressing her sadness at the verdict, saying that she had "serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted trial". She stated that evidence against Knox was insufficient, that Knox had been subjected to "harsh treatment" following her arrest and that there had been "negligence" in the handling of evidence. She also complained that jurors had not been sequestered, allowing them to view "negative news coverage" about Knox and that one of the prosecutors had a misconduct case pending in relation to another trial.

Cantwell said she would seek assistance from US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. A spokesman for the US Department of State stated in December 2009 that the Department had followed the case closely and would continue to do so. He added: "It is still in the early days but ... we haven't received any indications necessarily that Italian law was not followed".

Other related court cases

Kercher's family filed a civil suit against anyone found guilty of the murder. The court awarded a sum of €1,000,000 to each of the parents and €800,000 to each of Kercher's siblings.

Patrick Lumumba, the man originally accused of murdering Kercher, sued Knox for defamation and was awarded €40,000. He also pursued compensation from the Italian authorities for unjust imprisonment and the loss of his business and, in December 2009, a court awarded €8,000 in damages. In February 2010, Lumumba announced that he would be taking his claim for compensation from the Italian authorities to the European Court of Human Rights.

In March 2010, Knox won a civil case against Fiorenza Sarzanini, author of a book about the Kercher case, Amanda e gli altri ("Amanda and the others"), and her publisher for violation of her privacy and illegal publication of Court documents. The book contained long excerpts from Knox's diary as well as from witness interviews that were not in the public domain, as well as intimate details professing to be about Knox's sex life. Knox was awarded €40,000 in damages.

Following an investigation into Knox's statements that she was mistreated by police during questioning about the murder, a case for criminal slander was opened against her on 1 June 2010. In November 2010, Knox was ordered to stand trial on the slander charge by a judge in Perugia.

Knox's parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas have been charged with criminal slander as a result of an interview published by the Sunday Times in 2009, in which they stated that their daughter "had not been given an interpreter, had not received food and water and had been physically and verbally abused" by police officers, after her arrest. Knox and Mellas had sought to have charges dismissed, on the grounds that there was no intent.

Portrayals in books and other media

Books

• Candace Dempsey, Murder in Italy: The Shocking Slaying of a British Student, the Accused American Girl, and an International Scandal, Berkley, ISBN 978-0425230831
• John Follain, Death in Perugia: The definitive account of the killing of British student Meredith Kercher, Hodder & Stoughton General, ISBN 034099309X, 978-0340993095
• Rocco Girlanda, Take me with you - Talks with Amanda Knox in prison, Piemme, Oct 2010, ISBN 8856615622, 978-8856615623
• Gary C King, The Murder of Meredith Kercher, John Blake Publishing Ltd, 4 Jan 2010, ISBN 184454902X, 978-1844549023
• Barbie Latza Nadeau, Angel Face: The True Story of Student Killer Amanda Knox, Beast Books, 15 May 2010, ISBN 0984295135, 978-0984295135
• Jacopo Pezzan, Giacomo Brunoro, Amanda Knox And The Perugia Murder: Italian Crimes (also known as Amanda Knox And The Perugia Murder), LA CASE, March 2011, ASIN B004QXYED6. Italian version: Amanda Knox e il delitto di Perugia : Misteri Italiani, LA CASE, March 2011, ASIN B004QXZYYE. Audiobooks.
• Paul Russell, Graham Johnson, Luciano Garofano, Darkness Descending - the Murder of Meredith Kercher, Pocket Books, 7 Jan 2010, ISBN 1847398626, 978-1847398628 (Paperback)
• Fiorenza Sarzanini, Amanda e gli altri , Bompiani, Jul 2009, ISBN 8845262189

Television documentaries

• Sex, Lies and the Murder of Meredith Kercher; "Cutting Edge" documentary for Channel 4. Broadcast in the UK on 17 April 2008, 9pm
• American Girl, Italian Nightmare; CBS "48 Hours" documentary broadcast in April 2009 in the US.
• A Long Way From Home; CBS "48 Hours" documentary broadcast in April 2008 in the US.
• The Trial of Amanda Knox; NBC "Dateline NBC" documentary broadcast on 4 December 2009 in the US.
• Beyond the Headlines: Amanda Knox; Lifetime network documentary broadcast on 21 February 2011 in the US.

TV movie

A TV movie about the case Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy has been made by the U.S. Lifetime television network. It focuses on Knox, who is played by the American actress Hayden Panettiere, with Kercher being played by the British actress Amanda Fernando Stevens. The Kercher family have condemned the film and described its images as "horrific and distressing". Before the film was broadcast, lawyers for both Knox and Sollecito formally demanded that Lifetime scrap the project.

References

1. "Amanda Knox conviction spawns controversy", ItalianInsider.it, 8 December 2009. Retrieved 2011-03-31.
2. ^ Dempsey, Candace (2010). Murder in Italy. New York: Berkley Books. ISBN 978-0-425-23083-1.
3. ^ "How Strong Is the Evidence Against Amanda Knox?" by Tiffany Sharples, TIME magazine, 14 June 2009
4. "Amanda Knox tells court police hit her during interrogation", Guardian.co.uk, 12 June 2009. Retrieved 2011-03-31.
5. ^ "Andrea Vogt: Amanda Knox prepares to take centre stage" The Independent, 7 June 2009. Retrieved 2011-03-31.
6. "Meredith Kercher's family break their dignified silence: 'We are living a nightmare'". Daily Mirror. London. 6 December 2009. Retrieved 2 June 2010. This source mentions Kercher's birthday as 28 December and says that she was 21 when she died in November 2007, giving a birth date of 28 December 1985
7. "Tears for Meredith as parents lead 600 mourners at murdered student's funeral". Daily Mail. London. 14 December 2007. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
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• Use dmy dates from March 2011
• 1985 births
• 2007 deaths
• 2007 crimes
• 2007 in Italy
• British people murdered abroad
• Deaths by stabbing
• Murder in 2007
• Murder in Italy
• People murdered in Italy
• People educated at the Old Palace School