Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings/Conspiracy Theories Book II

Amanda Knox (Part II)

Trial of Guede

Guede fled to Germany shortly after the murder. During a November 19, 2007, Skype conversation with his friend Giacomo Benedetti, Guede did not mention Knox or Sollecito as being in the house on the night of the murder. Later his account changed and he indirectly implicated them in the murder, which he denied involvement in. Guede was arrested in Germany on November 20 and then extradited to Italy on December 6. Guede opted to be tried in a special fast track procedure by Judge Micheli. He was not charged with having had a knife. He did not testify and was not questioned about his statements, which had altered from his original version. Guede was convicted of murder, but the official judges' report on the conviction specified that he had not had a knife or stabbed the victim, or stolen any of Kercher's possessions. Micheli's finding that Guede must have had an accomplice gave support to the later prosecution of Knox.

The judges reasoned that Guede would not have faked a burglary, because it would have pointed to him in view of his own earlier break-ins (though at the time of the murder he was known to police only for being detained for trespassing in Florence). Despite Guede saying that Kercher had let him into the house through the entry door, the judges decided against the possibility of Guede's having gotten in by simply knocking on the door because they thought Kercher would not have opened the cottage door to him (although she knew he was an acquaintance of her boyfriend, Giacomo Silenzi). In his original account, Guede had said that Kercher's confrontation with her killer had started at the entry door to the house. One legal commentator on the case thought that insufficient consideration had been given to the possibility that Guede had called at the house on some pretext while Kercher was alone there, murdered her after she opened the door to him, and faked a burglary to cover his tracks.

In October 2008, Guede was found guilty of the sexual assault and murder of Kercher and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. His prison sentence was ultimately reduced to 16 years.

The first trial of Knox and Sollecito

In 2009, Knox and Sollecito pleaded not guilty at a Corte d'Assise on charges of murder, sexual assault, carrying a knife (which Guede had not been charged with), simulating a burglary, and theft of 300 euros, two credit cards, and two mobile phones. There was no charge in relation to Kercher's missing keys to the entry door and her bedroom door; although Guede's trial judgment said he had not stolen anything. There was a separate but concurrent trial of Knox with the same jury as her murder trial in which she was accused of falsely denouncing her employer for the murder. Knox's police interrogation was deemed improper and ruled inadmissible for the murder trial, but was heard in her nominally separate trial for false denunciation.

Prosecution case

According to the prosecution, Knox's first call of November 2, to Kercher's English phone, was to ascertain if Kercher's phones had been found, and Sollecito had tried to break in the bedroom door because after he and Knox locked it behind them, they realized they had left something that might incriminate them. Knox's call to her mother in Seattle, a quarter of an hour before the discovery of the body, was said by prosecutors to show Knox was acting as if something serious might have happened before the point in time when an innocent person would have such concern.

A prosecution witness, homeless man Antonio Curatolo, said Knox and Sollecito were in a nearby square on the night of the murder. Prosecutors advanced a single piece of forensic evidence linking Sollecito to Kercher's bedroom, where the murder had taken place: fragments of his DNA on Kercher's bra clasp. Giulia Bongiorno, leading Sollecito's defense, questioned how Sollecito's DNA could have gotten on the small metal clasp of the bra, but not on the fabric of the bra back strap from which it was torn. "How can you touch the hook without touching the cloth?", Bongiorno asked. The backstrap of the bra had multiple traces of DNA belonging to Guede. According to the prosecution's reconstruction, Knox had attacked Kercher in her bedroom, repeatedly banged her head against a wall, forcefully held her face, and tried to strangle her. Guede, Knox, and Sollecito had removed Kercher's jeans and held her on her hands and knees while Guede had sexually abused her. Knox had cut Kercher with a knife before inflicting the fatal stab wound; then faked a burglary. The judge pointedly questioned Knox about a number of details, especially concerning her phone calls to her mother and Romanelli.