The Murder of Meredith Kercher (4 page)

Lumumba was comfortable wearing jeans, pullover shirts, and zippered jackets as part of his everyday attire, and people said that he typically had a kind smile on his face. The smile, however, was missing the morning he was arrested and handcuffed by police officers, and was replaced with an incredulous expression that depicted confusion, anger, and above all, disbelief about the predicament that he now found himself in.

One of Lumumba’s neighbours, according to the
Corriere dell’Umbria
, reportedly heard Lumumba shouting, ‘I haven’t done anything,’ as he was being handcuffed and placed inside a police car.

As news of Lumumba’s arrest as a murder suspect spread through the city, shock and disbelief was also on the minds of many of the students, as well as others
who knew him, including Esteban Garcia Pascual, owner of the popular student hangout, La Tana Dell’Orso, where Lumumba had worked occasionally as a DJ prior to opening Le Chic.

‘This is like a hammer blow to the head,’ Pascual said after hearing of Lumumba’s arrest. ‘I’ve known him since 1999, and I can’t believe it… he is very friendly and professional.’ Pascual said that Lumumba was a gentle and relaxed person. ‘He worked at the university organizing cultural events and concerts, and is from a really respectable family. He is a nice person… very friendly and professional.’

Prior to his arrest, Lumumba was seen mingling with students, journalists and friends of Meredith outside the university. He purportedly told one reporter that he liked Meredith, and had been planning to give her a job handing out advertising leaflets for Le Chic.

When it became clear that the police believed they had built a solid case against their three suspects, the pathologist, Luca Lalli, who had performed the autopsy on Meredith’s body, made another statement to the press that was related to his earlier comments in which he had suggested that Meredith had sex before she was killed, but still refrained from calling it rape.

‘The autopsy showed no sign of the lesions that suggest rape, but I cannot rule out intercourse under threat, which might not have the same signs,’ Lalli
said. ‘I feel free to say that, now that the police have a break in the investigation.’

If Meredith had been forced, or coerced, into having sexual relations under threat or duress, would that not be the same as rape? Many people reading the various accounts of the case now wondered about the legal definition of rape, but considering that there was nothing of evidentiary value that conclusively showed that Meredith had been raped had little choice but to accept the Italian authorities’ theory about what had happened that night. People also believed the assertion made by the police that Meredith knew her assailants, because of the lack of forced entry to the house.

Meanwhile, Meredith’s parents, along with her sister, who had been in Perugia to identify Meredith’s body and to be brought up to date with what was happening regarding the investigation, had to leave to return to London on Wednesday, November 7. Prior to leaving, however, John Kercher, in a very poignant gesture on the family’s behalf, left a note on the steps of Perugia’s cathedral, facing the city’s square, which read: ‘Love you forever, Meredith. All my love, Dad. Xxxx.’

I
t was not long before the nickname ‘Foxy Knoxy’ – one that came from her skills on the football pitch – was taken from Amanda Knox’s own MySpace page, and appeared in media reports of Amanda’s involvement in the Meredith Kercher murder case. And within a day or two of her arrest, images from the social networking MySpace page also began appearing all over the Internet, depicting her as a heartless villain with a voracious sexual appetite. But it did not end merely with portraying Amanda as a ‘man-eater’. It seemed that within hours of the dissemination of news about her MySpace site, a story, also found on her page, about two brothers conversing about the drugging and rape of a female, began finding its way around the Internet. Not helping matters for Amanda – who was being described as a wholesome, warm and adventurous person by her acquaintances, friends, and
relatives – was the way the Italian press and British tabloids jumped on the bandwagon that was rolling out a portrayal of her as the ‘Dark Lady of Seattle’ or ‘
La luciferina
’, loosely translated as an angel-faced devil. To top it all off, such a disparaging portrayal of the young woman with icy blue eyes – whether true or false – was only just beginning.

Born on July 9, 1987, in Seattle, Washington, Amanda Knox grew up in the typically quiet west side working-class area that is situated along picturesque Puget Sound. Characterized as a bright student in high school, Amanda won a partial scholarship to the Seattle Preparatory School, an esteemed and prestigious private school that was affiliated with Seattle University. The school was a long commute from her home, but she made the trip five days a week with excellent attendance, only rarely missing a day. Although homework assignments were often extensive, she always seemed to find the time to participate in soccer, one of her favourite sports, and drama. She also enjoyed rock climbing, and some would say later that the sport had given her much strength in her hands and fingers – the type of strength needed, for instance, to hold someone down during a violent struggle.

Following graduation from high school, Amanda was readily accepted at the University of Washington, also in Seattle, where she studied German, Japanese, Italian and creative writing. It was later said that the
‘dark’ short story about the drugging and rape of a young woman that she had placed on her MySpace page had been written in one of her university creative writing classes. The story involved two brothers, Kyle and Edgar, and Kyle says at one point: ‘A thing you have to know about chicks is that they don’t know what they want.’
Kyle winked his eye
. ‘You have to show it to them. Trust me.’
He cocked his eyebrows up and one side of his mouth rose into a grin
. ‘I think we both know hard A is hardly a drug.’

When she had the opportunity to study in Italy for a year, Amanda jumped at it. She left for Europe in late summer 2007 and arrived in Italy in August via a trip through Germany, where she visited relatives. Once in Perugia she settled into the villa with the three other girls, started her college courses, and found the
part-time
job at Le Chic.

Many people close to Amanda, and who were supporting her through the ordeal involving Meredith’s murder, said that she was a kind and caring girl and that the type of crime she had been charged with was totally out of character, and that she was not capable of murder. However, the picture being portrayed of her by investigators, the judiciary, and the media in Italy was markedly different.

For example, while friends and acquaintances of Meredith, many of whom also knew Amanda and Raffaele, had been visibly upset during questioning by police, Amanda and Raffaele behaved affectionately
toward one another during police questioning, which seemed unusual considering the circumstances. And according to Monica Napoleoni, head of homicide in Perugia, Amanda had remained quiet and calm during questioning, while at one point had been seen doing cartwheels and splits at the police station. However, when taken in for fingerprinting, according to D’Astolto, she had paced back and forth and had hit herself on the head – possibly in the realisation of the significant role that such evidence might play in her future.

Another occurrence that did not serve to help Amanda’s case early on was when police interpreter Aida Colontane, and a roommate from the villa, reported seeing a red welt on Amanda’s neck, that some would speculate could have been caused during a struggle with Meredith. Police would also report that despite earlier suggestions that Amanda’s fingerprints had been found inside Meredith’s bedroom, only one fingerprint belonging to Amanda had been found inside the cottage – strange considering she lived there. This led the police to deduce that the cottage had been cleaned after Meredith’s death. The police also said that a hand impression possibly made by Amanda had been found on Meredith’s head. As information continued to be revealed slowly, forensic investigators would report that they had identified fresh blood – both Meredith’s and Amanda’s – in the bathroom sink that they shared. 

It seemed evident that even early on in the investigation, nearly everyone – with the exception of Amanda’s friends, relatives and staunchest supporters – including the police and the press in the UK and Italy, suspected Amanda might be responsible for Meredith’s murder. Newspapers and magazines were being sold on lurid, negative stories of the
innocent-looking
girl from Seattle who had been caught up in the elements of sex, drugs and murder, and insinuated – when they did not say it outright – that Amanda had all of her friends and family hoodwinked and that she had been leading a double life. Whether or not this was accurate, of course, remained to be seen, but one has to pause and wonder how much of the negativity that surrounded Amanda had been brought on by herself through her own behaviour and actions.

Take, for instance, a shopping trip that occurred on November 3, the day after Meredith’s body had been found. According to information that was reported to the police and made its way into the international press, Amanda and Raffaele were seen at a popular discount store in Perugia called Bubbles, purchasing women’s undergarments. The store’s owner later said that he had heard Raffaele whisper to Amanda, ‘We can have wild sex tonight.
Sesso selvaggio
.’

Amanda’s father, Curt Knox, who works as a manager at Macy’s store in Seattle, later told
Radar
magazine that the underwear story was ridiculous. He said that he travelled to Perugia to retrace her
movements that day, and found that the only reason Amanda had gone into the store to buy underwear was because she had no clothing to wear – the cottage where she had resided had been sealed off by the police since Meredith’s death. He also claimed that music played inside the store is so loud that no one ‘could hear anything that anybody says’.

Because of the media’s characterization of Amanda, her family naturally went on the defensive early on in an effort to show that she was not this unbalanced young woman, capable of committing a heinous crime. Her father referenced the date rape story that the media culled from her MySpace page and told reporters that when she had been given the writing assignment by her instructor she had been told to ‘visualize a crime’. Curt Knox charged that the media had taken small details from her life and had ‘created someone who was 180 degrees from anybody we had ever known. They’ve created a person who does not exist.’

Her family also cited a much-published photograph of her, taken from her MySpace page, depicting Amanda dressed all in black – dress pants, a
long-sleeved
black top, and black high-heels – in a pose with her right leg up on a piano bench, her right arm extended and resting on her knee. While some accounts referred to the photograph as provocative, even promiscuous, her family explained that it was taken by Amanda’s 19-year-old younger sister, Deanna, for a photography class.

‘So, basically the perception that the media is using, that this is a provocative image, that’s a school assignment for her sister,’ Curt Knox said.

But from that point forward, it seemed, partly because of Amanda’s perceived coldness and lack of emotion concerning the murder of her flatmate on All Saint’s Day, the media – as well as the police – used the perception to not only incriminate her in the murder but to convict her in the so-called ‘court of public opinion’. The lovey-dovey scenes snuggling up to and kissing Raffaele were reproduced and spread through the media like wildfire, and reports of her doing cartwheels in the police station, and going out for pizza after Meredith’s murder, were all used to vilify her. Others, however, were left wondering that rather than being cold and unfeeling, she was merely expressing an immature nature. Some newspapers speculated whether she had been somehow damaged by living in the rainy Pacific Northwest, which is more often than not damp and darkly overcast, and she seemed unable to escape the unflattering characterization of ‘
una cacciatrice d’uomini, insaziabile a letto
’ (a huntress of men, insatiable in bed), in the Italian media.

Although it appeared that things could not get much worse for Amanda and Raffaele, the media frenzy surrounding the case took a new turn when photographs, taken from a blog site of Raffaele’s, emerged and were quickly snapped up and published by the tabloids. One photo depicted the doctor’s son
dressed as a surgeon holding a large meat cleaver in one hand and a bottle of bleach in the other. Although it was not clear when or where the photographs were taken, an entry on his site described trips he had taken to Prague, Nuremburg, and the Nazi concentration camp known as Dachau. The images and stories appeared less than a week after Meredith’s murder.

In his blog, Raffaele described himself as Christian, ‘very honest, peaceable, sweet but sometimes totally creazy [sic]’. He also said that his favourite sport was kick-boxing. During that first week after Meredith’s murder, Raffaele also spoke publicly about her, telling a journalist how he and Amanda had ‘discovered’ Meredith’s blood-soaked body.

‘It is something I hope to never see again,’ he said. ‘There was blood everywhere and I couldn’t take it all in. My girlfriend was her flatmate and she was crying and screaming, “How could anyone do this?”’

Reportedly very composed, Raffaele also said that Meredith was always smiling and seemed perpetually happy. He said that Meredith was ‘really popular’ with students and other people her age, and that it was ‘horrible that someone would want to hurt her’.

He described how he and Amanda had gone to a party with friends the night Meredith was killed, and that they had returned to his apartment, located in an old building on a steep, curvy hillside street, where they spent the night. Amanda, he said, returned to the villa she shared with Meredith and the other girls 
around lunchtime the following day to take a shower.

‘When she arrived the front door was wide open. She thought it was weird, but thought maybe someone was in the house and had left it ajar. But when she went into the bathroom she saw spots of blood all over the bath and sink. She ran back to my place because she didn’t want to go into the house alone. I agreed to go back with her.’

He said that when they walked into the flat together a short time later, he knew right away, in part due to the eerie silence, that something was wrong.

‘The bathroom was speckled with blood,’ he said, ‘like someone had flicked it around. Just little spots. We went into Filomena’s bedroom and it had been ransacked, like someone had been looking for something. But when we tried Meredith’s room, the door was locked. I tried to knock it down but I wasn’t strong enough so I called the police.’

The police, however, had noted that the call made from Raffaele’s phone purportedly to notify them of his and Amanda’s discovery had been made after officers had already arrived. He went on to describe how he followed officers into Meredith’s room.

‘It was hard to tell it was Meredith at first, but Amanda started crying and screaming,’ he said. ‘I dragged her away because I didn’t want her to see it, it was so horrible. It seems the killer came through the window because it was smashed and there was glass all over the place.’

In the hours and days that followed, the inconsistencies in the accounts provided by Amanda and Raffaele would be noted, even pointed out to the media, and the once charming couple would be even more vilified, correctly or not, in the eyes of all those who were so closely following their case around the world.

Among the points that were made public was the fact that Amanda had broken down during questioning by police when she told of hearing Meredith screaming, when Lumumba purportedly had gone into Meredith’s room. That, of course, was in direct conflict with Raffaele’s account in which he had backed Amanda’s claims of having spent that Thursday evening together.

If Amanda had taken Lumumba that evening to the house she shared with Meredith, she could not possibly have spent the entire night with Raffaele. When confronted with the discrepancy, Raffaele told the police that he had, in fact, been at home alone during the evening hours and that Amanda had joined him at 1 a.m.

So who was telling the truth, the police wondered. Was anyone connected to the case being truthful?

Lawyers for Amanda and Raffaele – Luciano Ghirga and Tiziano Tedeschi, respectively – were naturally outraged that Amanda’s statement to the police was leaked to the
Corriere Della Sera
, and came out publicly, in an obvious effort to counter the
damage that had already been done, by proclaiming their innocence.

Ghirga said that Edda Mellas, Amanda’s mother and a maths teacher in the U.S., ‘is convinced her daughter is innocent.’ He also said that ‘we maintain her innocence.’ Similarly, Tedeschi said that his client, Raffaele, was at his home in Perugia on the night Meredith was killed.

‘We believe he was online that night,’ Tedeschi said. ‘We are sure of Raffaele’s innocence… we will show that at the time this [murder] was taking place, Raffaele was on his computer. He had nothing to do with this murder and is completely innocent… the possible hypothesis is, that being with a beautiful girl he allowed himself to be drawn into giving her an alibi.’ Both lawyers agreed that Amanda and Raffaele had been ‘lynched by the media’.