Legally Brunette: Amanda Knox

Amanda Knox was wrongfully convicted of her roommate’s death but what chain of events led to her arrest?

Emily and Shane discuss the media frenzy that turned everyone against her, the corrupt police department and the “evidence” that proved nothing. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, guys, thank you for joining us for Legally Brunette.
I'll be your host today Emily Simpson with Shane. First
of all, we're going to go into for the bulk
of this episode, we're going to go into the Amanda
Knox story. But first I just want to start with
a little update about Brian Coberger because there's been so
many things in the news about him, and every time

(00:22):
I pull up and when I say news, my news
sources Instagram. So when I pull up Instagram, very very
reliable news in my Instagram feed, lots of things about
Brian Coburger. So let's just do a little update. I
like to do updates on some of the things that
we've talked about previously.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
He's still in jail, He's still in prison.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Reports indicate that inmates at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution
have found ways to make his life very difficult. According
to a retired homicide detective, his name is Chris mcdonnaugh,
prisoners have been shouting through aravins, banging on doors, and
verbally taunting him. I also so read that they have
done it in a way where it's very organized. They

(01:04):
actually shift. They do it in shifts, so that it's
twenty four to seven, so that he.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Never gets But wouldn't that annoy the other prisoners, Like
if I was, like, I.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Didn't murder four people. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
That's a good question. I didn't think about that. But
I don't know if yeah, I don't know. I don't
know how they went.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
If they're all on the same page and they're all
well to do it, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Maybe they do it in a way where the people
farthest from him take naps while everyone else is tormenting him,
and then they do it in ships. But anyway, so
they've been banging on doors verbally taunting him, and it
has been described as psychological torture intended to deprive him
of rest and peace of mind. The Idaho Department of
Corrections confirm that Coburger has voice concerns about what he

(01:51):
calls harassment, but emphasize that inmates often communicate with one
another through prison infrastructure. Officials have stress that he were
housed alone in his cell and that staff continued to
enforce safety and order. Basically, they're just like, what do
you What are you gonna do about it? And mates
have found ways to communicate with each other and so

(02:13):
they came up with some organized way to taunt him.
I actually, I don't feel badly no, I mean, are
we supposed to feel badly for Brian Coburger boo?

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Who Yeah, that's a form of hierarchy too in these prisons.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
This is interesting because after he pleaded or he took
his plea deal, all these new documents have been released
about the case, and one of them was very interesting.
It was that he faced many complaints when he was
at Washington State. So newly released documents and witness statements
revealed that Brian Coberger faced a total of thirteen complaints
while he was at Washington State University by the end

(02:47):
of just his first semester in his PhD program.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
What were the comlients.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
One student who was divorced were called that Coburger told
her he did not date quote broken women, while another
student who was deaf, was asked by cob whether she
should consider having children given her disability. I guess he's
just out there offending everyone, basically. Several classmates and staff
reported that he frequently stared and vaded personal space and

(03:12):
cornered people into unwanted conversations.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
A lot of those women are probably like, holy crap,
he could have he was staring at me, he could
have killed me.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, I could have been the one on the list.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah, I mean it's really once you I mean, can
you imagine learning later that you just went to school
with or just you know, had conversations or class with
somewhat like a serial killer or.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Something, that twenty years later he killed someone else, like
during that time that semester.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Right, a younger undergraduate working in the criminology department, said
she eventually needed rides home from her boss just to
avoid walking or taking the bus alone in fear of Coburger.
I mean, I guess that's how bad he was bad
he is. Administrators ultimately required first year doctoral students to
attend discrimination training. This is due to the level disruption

(04:00):
his conduct was causing. Isn't that amazing how one person
can be so off putting and so bizarre that they
have to make an entire class take a training course
because of one person's bad behavior. Yeah, but I guess
they can't single I guess the point was they can't
single him out and be like you behaving and properly.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, it's education for everyone, I guess.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Right. In another article. It claims that Brian Coberger was
a supporter of the death penalty in his PhD program,
which was in a People article addressing right the irony
the irony for other people, not for me. Accounts from
Washington State University also indicate that Brian Coburger frequently clashed

(04:48):
with his peers in the Criminology PhD program, particularly over
topics such such as punishment and justice. While most of
his classmates opposed capital punishment, he was described as a
very outspoken supporter of it. In one classroom exchange documented
by investigators, Coberger pressed his argument and support of the
death penalty by asking a fellow student imagine if her

(05:11):
twelve year old daughter was the victim of rape and murder.
He asked her, would you then support the death penalty
in a case like that? You know, again, it just
goes through the irony of the situation that we're talking
about someone that was clearly so scared of the death penalty.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, And that was a criminology major, right, I mean,
he's hanging around crime a lot, so.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
You know, I would say, and this is just a
personal anecdote here in my younger years, when I was
less wise and less educated, I would say I was
a proponent of the death penalty because I think when
you're younger or not as educated about the system, I
clearly wasn't involved with the Innocent Center at that point
in time. You have a very naive approach to the

(05:53):
justice system, where you think bad people go to jail
and innocent people don't, and guilty.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
If you're found guilty, you're guilty.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
If you're found guilty, you're guilty. If you're in prison,
you should be there. And if you committed capital crimes,
then you should be punished for such. However, now, and
you and I have had this conversation, because I know
you're not a proponent of the death penalty.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
I am not for the death penalty.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
You're not well.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
I am for the death penalty if it's done correctly.
What would be done, but.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Not killing innocent people?

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Right? Yeah, So if it's truly someone guilty, yes, and
guilty of a horrific crime, not just you know, a misdemeanor. Right.
So if but the systems flawed enough where I don't
think it's a.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Good idea, well that's the problem is is the risk And.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
You're going to say reward, it's not a reward, but
you know.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
The detriment is outweighs the benefit of capital punishment, because
that's exactly just putting one innocent person to death or
crime they did not commit, makes you say which happens.
It happens a lot.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, So it's irreversible exactly. But life, imprisonment or any
kind of prison sentence is reversible. You can fix that.
I mean, granted, there's gonna be trauma and time loss,
but you can fix that. But you can't fix someone
that's dead.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Exactly, all right. Victims families sue over crime scene photos.
This is an interesting, I guess, not only a legal debate,
but a moral debate. So the families of Madison Mogan
and Ethan Shapin, who we know we're two of the
victims and the Idaho murders, have filed a lawsuit against
the city of Moscow, Idaho, over the public release of
crime scene photographs. Their attorney told News Nation that the

(07:41):
families had begun to find a sense of closure after
Coburger's sentencing, but the publication of graphic images reopened painful wounds.
While acknowledging that some materials may inevitably become public because
of intense interests in the case. The attorney argued that
photos showing the victims or the immediate app aftermath of
the murders should remain private, calling such images an invasion

(08:04):
of privacy. He urged the court to restrict their release
and ask the public not to view them if they
appear online. He was also reminding people to consider how
devastating it would be for the victims' families. I don't
know what is your take on that. I did see
some of the images.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
I don't know what are the rules with that.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Like, I'm sure it's the state thing, but like, is
it public? Are they public images? Like the record becomes public?
So did the images? Do they redact them? Like the images? Well,
I don't know what because I remember Kobe Bryant. Yeah,
you know some officers I think took images or pictures
or first responders of some sort.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Right right when it happened, and then released.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
It, right. I don't know how it got released, but
it eventually got out there. Yeah, and then Vanessa Bryan
sued and she succeeded.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
I think they released them. Wasn't it to TMZ And
I think.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
I don't know, but I just know that they crossed
the line with the images, and in court she succeeded.
She prevailed, so obviously there was some wrong doing. I
don't know what the rules are on that. I always
wonder that.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
I guess it comes down to it. It's a moral
dilemma or is it a legal dilemma. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Is it I would want if it was a tragedy
and that involved my family, I would not want those
images out there, right, So I can totally understand those
images should should kind of be kept. I don't know
how you do it, though, because you release file. You
release a file, right, and then all it takes is
one person just to sneak a photo out there online
and it's over. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
I don't know if there was a differentiation made between
the images in between the documents that were released, because
clearly after he took the plea deal, all a lot
of the documents and the investigation were released to the public,
and then those images were released as well. Somehow, I
don't know if they were released by It might.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
Just be an unfortunate thing.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
That's just the way you release the file because public
has the access to it, and it's just unfortunate for
the victim's families. You know, maybe that's just the way
it is. You can't please everyone, you know.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
All right, let's move into the bulk of our conversation today,
which revolves around the Amanda Knox case. And I will
tell you this happened in two thousand and seven. I
remember it. It was like it kind of reminds me
of like Menendez, where no, I was very I was
like sixteen.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
You were sixteen in two thousand.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
So when Menendez happened, I was like sixteen, and I
remember being very intrigued by it and watching it on
the news. And so in two thousand and seven, with
the Amanda Knox story, I was very intrigued by it,
and you know, I watched the news about it. This
is before Instagram, so I guess I was actually watching
the news at this point.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
And I and I knew the smary more reliable back
we actually in this case, it wasn't very reliable, right well, I.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Mean, she had such a smear campaign against her. But
we'll get into that in a little bit. But do
you remember the case in two thousand and seven? Do
you remember it being.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
In the media.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
I remember, and I think you we talked about it
with like together. That's where I learned it from was
I did.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
I was working with Shane and two aout.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
She was in Italy. This is what my understanding was,
which I think is not correct. She was great in Italy.
She was an exchange student and there was some like
sex crazed party or game or something, and as part
of that, they killed her roommate and it was like

(11:21):
gruesome and their psychos and all that, And that's all
I heard.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Because Shane is an example of how the media can
take a story and present it in a way and
then that is all you take.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
And I didn't look into it.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
I didn't click, I didn't watch the videos and are
reporting on it. I just see those headlines and that's
what sticks in your head. Say it with the Menendez
it just stuck in my head that they're rich kids
that killed their parents and that's all you think.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, well that was the takeaway, right exactly. All right, Well,
let's go into the Amanda Knox story and let's actually
break it down and let's get into the facts as
opposed to just the headlines. So in two thousand and seven,
a Manonox. She was a twenty year old student from Seattle,
Washington and she was studying abroad in Perusia, Italy, where
she lived with another roommate named Meredith Kircher. Now Meredith

(12:11):
Kircher was not from the United States. She was from England.
She was a twenty one year old British student.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Did they know each other prior or they were?

Speaker 1 (12:19):
They just they were just on this study abroad program.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Okay, So they got it paired up right.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
And Philhemina Romanelli was an Italian trainee lawyer who was
also living in the same place, as well as another
Italian student named Laura Mazzetti. So there's four girls living
in this cottage type of home in Perusia, Italy. Amanda
first arrives in Perusia and she talks about how she
just spent the first couple of weeks that she's there

(12:44):
exploring the city and sightseeing and all these types of things.
She also talks about this is a twenty sixteen documentary
that I watched called Amandaox. So a lot of the
information that I talk about, a lot of the knowledge
that I have comes from that documentary. I've watched it
multiple times. I also have watched it multiple times. But
then when I'm watching a documentary, I also google things

(13:06):
constantly because I like to see the accuracy of it
or yeah, well I just like to add more. I
like to figure out things. So anyway, if you're interested,
there's a twenty sixteenth documentary. It's just called Amanda Knox,
and I believe it's either it's on Netflix or Hulu,
but I've watched it multiple times. I think it does
a really good breakdown of this case and presenting it
from all sides.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
And it's like it's a like a dramatization.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
No, it's it's actual interviews. They interview Amanda, they interview
the boyfriend, they interview the prosecutor, they interview the you know,
the journalists from Daily Mail that was the one that
wrote all the salacious headlines. Like, they present it from
all angles, and I think they do a really good
job of it. So Amanda's in Perusia, She's exploring the city.
She also talks about how she thought this study abroad

(13:53):
program was going to be a scholarly program, but she
realized quickly that it was basically like a class and
that was it. There was much of a workload or
anything that went with it. It was it was more like,
come to hang out in Italy and take some light classes.
So then she realized she has all night right, so
she has all this free time. So she ends up
getting a job at a bar in Perugia called Le Chic,

(14:15):
which was owned by a man named Patrick La Mumba.
And his name is very important because he's going to
come up later. But so far we have key players.
We have Amanda Knox, we have Meredith Kercher, who's the roommate.
We have Patrick La Mumba, who owns the bar where
she worked, where she worked. And then one night, after
she's been in Perusia for a little while, she goes

(14:35):
to a classical music concert. I think it was for
university students, and she meets her boyfriend who's named Rafaela
and I believe his last name is Soli Chito. He's Italian,
but we'll just call him Rafaeli because I don't want
to try to use my Italian accent. It's not very
good because you don't have one, because I don't have one. Anyway,

(14:57):
the two of them meet on October twenty fifth of
two thousand and seven. They meet at a concert. They
end up going out that night I believe after the concert.
I think she goes home with him that night and
they have dinner and sex, and they'd begin again slow.
She takes it slow. She's really into taking things slow.
But anyway, this is I think it's really important to
note that this is October twenty fifth because everyone refers

(15:22):
to them as like this boyfriend and girlfriend couple that
you know allegedly or perhaps committed this murder. But they
only knew each other like five days before it.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
Five days a week, yes, so it takes much longer
to create like a sex crazed murderactly five.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Days, right, So anyway, they they meet, they instantly fall
in love, become boyfriend and girlfriend, and they're inseparable. So
let's move on into the actual Meredith Kercher murder. So
this is October twenty fifth when they meet at this
concert on the evening of Thursday, November one, two thousand

(16:02):
and seven. Amanda in Rafaelle were at Rafaelle's apartment that
evening and they decided to download Amanda's all time favorite movie,
which is the movie Ama Lee. I think that's how
you say it. It's a French movie. I actually like it.
I've seen it multiple times, it's very good. So at
around eight thirty pm, they're watching this movie. And then
around eight thirty pm, Amanda checks her phone and she

(16:23):
finds a text from Patrick Lamumba. Remember we talked about boss,
That is the boss that owns the bar. He texts
her telling her that he expected the night to be
very slow and that she didn't need to come into
the bar. Amanda texts back at eight thirty eight pm,
and she says she says it in Italian, but it
translates into see you later. Have a good evening. Now,

(16:45):
it's really important to remember that. She says, see you later.
Then she turns off her phone. I guess this is
in two thousand and seven. So do people turn do
you turn phones off and on? In two thousand and seven?

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Do you remember I was a flip phone?

Speaker 1 (16:59):
When did the I phone come out?

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Two thousand and seven? It was a slow start and
not everyone ran out and grabbed him.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Okay, so this is November of two thousand and seven.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yeah, so it's pretty much pre smartphones. Okay, you know,
for the sake of for purposes of this conversation, it's
pretty smartphone, right.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Okay, So she turned off her phone. And she turned
off her phone just in case.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
I guess people did turn off phones at night time. Yeah,
I don't know, that's turn off my phone.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Did you turn off your so yeah? Yeah, we didn't
leave them on like you do like an iPhone. Right.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
No, I mean maybe if you plugged it in left
all night.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
But I think you did kind of naturally, just like
like you turn off your computer or something, right, you
turn off.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
I guess because pre iPhones, we weren't completely we weren't addicted,
we weren't addicted to our phones. They really were just
for the purpose of communicating of a phone call, right,
So I guess that's white people.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
And now it's like, you know, you have to have
it twenty four to seven, right.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
So she turns off her phone because she says she
doesn't want him to text back and change his mind
about working, So she turns off her phone.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
That's like covering your eyes and if you don't see
the other person, they don't exists, come in. It doesn't
change any Well, I don't.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Know, because if the phone's turned off, does the text
not go through? I don't remember flip phones.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
There was a lot more work to text too, with
only nine digits.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
You know what I was thinking, though, I feel like
sometimes I would like to trade in my iPhone just
for a flip phone.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
I'd love to trade in your eye.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
I know you would, because I feel like we just
need to go back to simpler times.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
All right.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Anyway, Anyway, so Rafaelli turns off his phone as well
so that they wouldn't be interrupted when the movie ended.
They ate fish for dinner, they dealt with a leaky
kitchen sink, and they smoked a joint. That's that's the
thing they did. There was a lot of smoking marijuana
and a lot of sex over these six days that
they're together. And then they apparently allegedly so they claim,

(18:48):
go to sleep. Now, this is the evening of Thursday, November.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
First, and I'm sorry, who's home Dan, his or hers?

Speaker 1 (18:54):
No, they're at his house, his apartment, which clearly is
nearby where she was staying with these other girls. I
think this is a very small town kind of and
so they're at his apartment, just the two of them alone.
They're watching a movie, they have dinner, they have sex,
they smoke pot, and then allegedly from what the investigation

(19:15):
has turned up, that the estimated window of the time
period in which Meredith Kircher was murdered that evening was
sometime between nine thirty PM and eleven thirty PM. So
that evening Meredith is murdered in they're in her and
Amanda and Philomena and the other girl, the four girls
that live together in their cottage. So the Meredith is

(19:37):
murdered that evening in Meredith's apartment that she shares with Amanda,
Amanda is in Raphael's apartment. So Amanda getting it on.
So Amanda wakes up the next day, so now we're
at Friday, November two, and claims that around ten am
she goes back alone to the cottage that she shares

(19:59):
with the other girls. She found the front door wide open. Now,
let me ask you a question. If you go home,
back to your own space, your apartment, your house, whatever,
and the door is wide open, do you find that
weird or do you just go in?

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Well, I would be a little suspicious, okay, So I
wouldn't necessarily be scared, but I'd be a little cautious
and wonder why. And I guess I would also just think, okay,
one of my roommates left it open. Idia, that's true.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
So she goes home in the morning and the front
door is wide open, and I guess you could just say, okay, well,
three other people, so maybe somebody left it open. That
alone is not startling, right. So then she goes to
take a shower. So while she's in the bathroom taking
a shower, before she gets in the shower, she looks
in the sink. She looks at the counter, I guess,
and there's some blood drops. But again, she's not really

(20:46):
alarmed by it. Okay, And I don't know. I put
myself in her position in a house, in a cottage.
I see some blood drops. Again, she's living with other women.
I don't know. Maybe you cut your fingernail. Maybe it
has some to you know.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
Well, if you come home right now and the door's open,
the door's wide open.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Forget the dog situation, the doors.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
A runaway dog, and you come home and doors open,
your first thought would be someone left the door open,
like someone that we live with.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Well, we live in a gated community, so my first
thought would be one of these kids left a door open.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Well, okay, but if we didn't, you'd probably still think
the same thing. Yeah, and then you go upstairs to
take a shower or a bath, and then you see
some drops of blood.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
What would you think then, nothing, I would think, there
you go. I would think someone in this house cut
their finger out the door and ran out the door
and left the door open.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
All right, So so far not really reason to be.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Alarmed, right, So then I think she also sees that
there's a little bit of blood on a shower mat.
It looks like a footprint or something. I guess. Still,
she's not really concerned at this point. Yeah, but it's
not like a full one and it's just like a
little bit of blood. I guess again, I think, and
these women and you have to these roommates share bathrooms. Yeah,
it's not like each person has their own individual bathroom.

(22:02):
So again, I guess you could write it off as
like someone got out small kinds.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
You said earlier. She's just as signed to these roommates,
so she doesn't really know them. It's not like she
knows their behavior and thinks, wait, why is someone bleeding
and left the door open?

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Right, these are four strangers that have all come together, right.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
So then she takes a shower.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
So then she takes a shower, she gets out of
the shower, and then she's drying her hair with the
blow dryer. And when she's drying her hair with the
blow dryer, she looks over and she notices that there's
feces in the toilet.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
Okay, so now someone didn't flush the toilet.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
So someone didn't flush the toilet. That is what alarms
her that there's something wrong.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
That would upset you.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, I would be so gross out by that. But
I mean, I have boys, so I feel like that's
normal because they don't always flush the.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Toilet or get it in the toilet or get it.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
That's true too. But the fact that she's these are
all young women that live in an apartment, that's not
normal behavior. So when she sees that, she becomes immediately
alarmed and thinks, okay, now something is off. No, here's okay.
So when I told you that when I watched documentaries
that I like to google.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Things, google feces.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
I googled can you find DNA and feces?

Speaker 3 (23:03):
I imagine you can imagine you can find a lot
of things.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Well, yeah, you can find a lot of things, but
you you can find DNA because well not only just blood,
but it said that you can actually get a large
sample of DNA because of the the lining of the
stomach and testines.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
Well, if you can get it from your mouth, why
couldn't you get it from your butt.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
Well, I'm just saying I didn't know if you could.
You could test feces for DNA, I don't know, because
it's waste. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
But apparently you can because you can get cells skin
cells from the inside of your intestines on the feces
and then you know, as it comes.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Out it probably I have a vision, yes, okay.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
I just wanted you to see what I was, what
I was working with.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Anyway, all the forensic scientists are like, no, you tested,
you test it.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
I'm not testing it all right, I don't know about
that part. But so she's concerned now because there's FECs
in the toilet, So she leaves. She goes back to
Raphael's apartment and she tells him there's something weird going on.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Okay, so now she's alarmed.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Now she's alarmed. So the two of them go back
together to the cottage. And when they go back together,
they go in, the door is still open. There's still
the blood spatter, there's the feces in the toilet. But
this time Rafael notices that there is a broken window
that it looks that looks like a rocksman thrown through it.
I think there's a rock there. And Meredith's door is

(24:24):
closed but it's locked and they can't get into her room.
And they said that was odd, like she normally doesn't
do that. So at some point they call the postal police.
And I know you think this is funny, but apparently,
apparently in Italy there are two types of police. There's
the postal police and the elite police. The postal police
deal I don't know why, the postal police, but apparently

(24:49):
they deal with tech crimes and then the elite police
deal with like actual crime. So the postal police police
the elite police. So the police, the postal police come
and they come to the cottage and at some point
I don't know where, I don't know the exact details.
But also the postal police were aware that Meredith had

(25:12):
two cell phones and those were found earlier by like
an older woman in her garden.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
And those are tied to Meredith.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
They're tied to Meredith two phones, two.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
Two cell phones, two cell phones in seven in seven Okay,
well not everyone even had a phone, Okay.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, so I don't know why there were two, but
there were two. So then once they arrive at this cottage,
the postal police are the ones that bust down the
door because it's locked. And then that is when they
find Meredith's dead body on the floor. She's laying on
the floor, she's covered by her duvet and there it's
a bloody scene. There's blood on the walls, there's blood

(25:50):
on the floor, there's fingerprints, there's just it's a crime scene.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
So now with her whole body covered. I remember were
watching this. I thought I heard something that the body
was covered, and some investigator was saying that females tend
to cover their victims. Yeah, that was which I didn't
like it because he made it like that's one hundred
percent the way it works. Yeah, I know, all female
murderers cover their victims and male murders don't.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
And I was like, yeah, well, this this Italian prosecutor,
he had a lot of wild theories that he just believed,
and then I feel like he came up with the
theory and then tried to find evidence to back his theory.
Instead of looking at the evidence and coming up with
the theory. It's like he made the evidence fit yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
Perpetrator or whatever.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
Right, But you're right, he did say that he was
very fixated on the fact that he said most.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Because I didn't watch the documentary, but you were watching it,
and he was.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
He was adamant.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, he made it like like that, that's that, therefore
it's a female murder.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Right, So she was covered by a duvet, you could
see her feet weren't covered. But he was very adamant
that it had to have been a female murderer because
he was claiming that statistically. I don't even know if
this is true. If he just made this up. I
don't even think that statistic is true. But basically, I
never heard anything that female murders cover the body or
something like that.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
But I've never heard anything where female murders tend to
do this and male murders. I've never even heard a
difference like that.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's that's something I
didn't google, but I google a lot. So if anybody
has any insight into that, please damn me. So, Meredith's
body was found lying on the floor partially covered with
a blood soaked duvet. She had suffered two knife wounds

(27:37):
to her neck and she was partially undressed. Blood was
visible on the floor, walls, and around her neck and head.
The room showed evidence of a very violent struggle. There
was overturned furniture, things were in disarray, and her belongings
were scattered about. Her cell phones and a few personal
items had been taken. And again we talked about how
the police ended up coming finding her two cell phones

(27:59):
that were and because of an elderly lady I believe
found them in her garden or something. So obviously someone
was in the house, took some of her personal things
and then discarded them later outside of the cottage. So
the homicide division shows up. Once the body's discovered, forensic
officers took over and everyone was moved out of the
house in order to preserve evidence. Officers began photographing and

(28:21):
sealing off the rooms. This is when Raphael and Amanda
are now not inside the cottage, but they are over
standing outside the cottage, And this is where I assume.
At this point, there's now a word that there's a
homicide in this little small Italian town, and the media
has arrived and they're video taping or recording the police

(28:44):
going in and out of the house, because you can
there's I've seen that footage. And they're also taking video
of Amanda and Rafael standing off to the side, and
this is where they're hugging and kissing. This ends Ida
see that part problem and it wasn't her.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, Okay, keep going. I did see that part, so
I have an opinion on it. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Well, I'm just saying this is what they captured on
on in a recording of them consoling each other or
hugging or kissing or making out or whatever you want
to call. It was problematic for her because that was
initially people just from the offset were saying that it
was she that she well, it was inappropriate. Even if

(29:27):
if it wasn't like she wasn't, you know, be carrying
or or she wasn't emotional. She didn't know this person, no,
you know, and that was another thing.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
She might have been scared or freaked out, but not
like sad.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah, as far as what I can tell or what
I've read and what I've watched, she and Meredith did
not know each other before they went there. They didn't
they knew each other briefly, and the time that they
lived there, I think they hung out a couple of times.
I don't think they had an amazing friendship by any
stretch of the imagine, nor were they really contentious with

(30:03):
each other either. I think it was probably more cohabitating. Yeah,
and so anyway, what they capture is her and RAPHAELI
off to the side. And then this is when I
think this whole media storm against Amanda because they a
lot of people thought that the way she was acting
was inappropriate in that particular scenario of what's going on.

(30:27):
So the locked bedroom door and the way the window
had been broken, this is when the detectives first enter
the room and they're they're they're collecting evidence. They noticed
that the window had been broken and raised immediate suspicions.
I still don't really understand this.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
I understand that the dead body didn't raise immediate suspicions.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
Well, the window raised suspicions because they thought it looked
like it was staged. They didn't think that it was
a legitimate burglary of someone outside of the house.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
The alarmed them as that suspicious behavior. It's not literally
a broken window that someone broke into to kill her, like,
there's something different about it, right.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
They felt as if the broken window because the glass
was laying on top, so the room was in disarray
some you know, there had been a struggle and there's
stuff everywhere, and then the glasses on top of that,
so that would indicate that the window was broken after
the struggle. So their initial thought process was, it looks stage.
It doesn't look like it was an actual burglary. It

(31:29):
looks like someone killing.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
They'll find the glass on the inside versus the outside,
And they determined a lot that.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Way, right, And that's it's very smart if you're an
investigator to look at things like that. The rest of
the house showed little disturbance, valuables weren't taken, and so
the scene didn't resemble a typical burglary. So that's what
we were talking about. So I think immediately this prosecutor
had in his mind that it was staged. Amanda's making
out with her boyfriend outside of the house. So I

(31:57):
think the theory that they he comes up with immediately
is this is off, she's acting weird. She has to
be involved in some way. So November two, this is
the day the body's found at the scene. Knox gave
a basic witness statement recounting her experience from that day.
Then we move on to November third through the fourth,
so this is when they're investigating. Knox was brought in

(32:18):
multiple times for routine questioning as a witness. It's important
to note that Amanda was not fluent in Italian. So
let's remember that she is there in Perugia, studying abroad
and learning Italian, but she does not speak Italian fluently.
So she's being brought in and she's being questioned, and
so far she's only being I don't know what you
want to call it, labeled as a witness, not a

(32:41):
person of interest at this part. At this point, she
admits to smoking marijuana the night of the murder, which
she had originally lied about. So this is another problem
with Amanda is inconsistent statements m H So November fifth
to six, this is when they give her an overnight interrogation.
So on the night of November fifth, Amanda Knox went

(33:02):
voluntarily to the police station. I don't know if this
is the night where she was doing the cartwheels, but
this is another problem that rubbed people the wrong way.
Was that when she was at the police station and
she was being interrogated or investigated or questioned, there was
a point in time where I think she was doing
yoga poses. I think there was another point in time

(33:23):
where she was doing cartwheels. It's just one more thing
to add to her behavior is off. She's not acting
like someone who just had a roommate that was murdered.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
Well, again, I've said this before, how does someone act I.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Don't know, you know, I don't know. You know. That's
a good question too, because the whole time I was,
you know, going through this documentary and I was reading,
and I was going through all these things about her,
and a big, huge part of why I think this
Italian prosecutor was so hell bent on making her a
guilty party was because he did not like the way
that she acted. And it reminded me of when we

(33:59):
talked to about the Idaho murders and how they didn't
call the police until the next day at noon, even
though one of the surviving roommates saw an intruder with
a mask on in the house.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
And I think I said the same thing, which is like, well,
how do you know how someone acts when they're frightened
and scared or confused or half awake and tired, and
then someone walks in and it's a apartment where it's
you know, lots of roommates and lots of activity. No
one knows.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
I don't know, but it's a very good question. I
think it's very easy for someone to say, oh, my gosh,
your roommate's just been murdered and you found the body.
You should behave like this, or the roommates in the
Idaho case, where it's like you have roommates that are
dead in your house and you heard noises and there
were suspicious things going on, and you saw an intruder,
but you didn't even call police until noon the next day.

(34:47):
But it's very easy from an outside perspective to look
in and say, this is what you should have done.
Why didn't you do that? You're not behaving like you should.
But you're right, no one knows what you would behave like.
You don't know what you would actually do if you
were put in that situation. No, I don't we get
to this overnight interrogation. So on the night of November fifth,
a man and Knox went voluntarily to the police station.

(35:09):
She started being questioned starting around ten thirty pm and
continued past one am all the way into November sixth
Knox was not This is important to remember too. Not
only does she not speak Italian, she was not given
a lawyer. She's also young, she's in a foreign country,
she doesn't have parents there, she doesn't have an advocate,
she has no.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
One male interrogators.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
And you're right, it's probably a bunch.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
Of intimidating because no one's being sensitive to her in
any way.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
So they ended up confiscating her phone and saw that
she had texted her boss the night of the murders.
And we talked about this earlier when she was at
when she was at Rafael's apartment and her boss, Patrick
Lumumba texted her and she replied, see you later. So
they find that text on her phone. And apparently even

(36:00):
in English, when we say see you later, when we
say see you later, it's a very vague meaning.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Right, it doesn't mean well later. There is no exact
time for later, right. It could be next week.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
It could be never. Yeah, I mean I've said see
you later. Lots of times of people hoping that I
never see.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
See them later. They may also want to see you
later exactly.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
So when the Italian police find this text on her
phone that says see you later, they start interrogating her,
saying taking it literally, because I guess an Italian, there
is no vague interpretation. It has a very strict literal,
meaning that she is going there so that there are

(36:44):
solid plans to see him later. So they start interrogating
her about Patrick and when she's going to see him,
and what time and all these things that they're supposedly
going to meet. Because they took this text very literally,
they accuse her of being a liar, saying she must
have met up with Patrick at some point she said
such a thing in a text. She later claims she
was subjected to hours and hours of pressure, repeated questions,

(37:06):
and intimidation, including being slapped in the head, until she
finally broke down. So what happens during this interrogation is
she actually names Patrick as the murderer, her boss, her boss,
and she gives this account of being there, of hearing
Meredith's scream, of Patrick being involved, of seeing Patrick in

(37:30):
the house, and she signs a confession. She actually signs
two confessions, but the two confessions that she signs were
written by the Italian investigators.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Has the phony like he pretends he knows how male
and females operate.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Yes, So they type out a statement and she signs
it at one forty five in the morning. Then there
is another statement that she signs at five forty five
in the morning, confessing to her and that she was there,
that the guy named Patrick la Mumba was involved.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Like more supposed facts.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
Well, I don't know if you want to more.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Confession, but no, I know, I know, may or may
not be, but more confession.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Yeah, just saying that like she heard screams and she
had to cover her ears.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
And she saw five in the morning.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
I can't even buy the if I if you woke
me up at five in the morning and said buy
this on Amazon, I probably buy the wrong thing.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
So that's shady right there.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Right, So, as we talked about the two confessions, she
signs at one and then another one at five forty five.
Then later that day Knox gave another handwritten note saying
that she was confused and that her previous statements were
the result of pressure and exhaustion. So then later that day,
after she signs these two confessions, basically implicating Patrick la
Mumba and saying that she was part of you know,

(38:54):
that she was there and that she heard the screaming
and things like that. She then goes back and cants
and writes this long handwritten note saying that she was
confused and that her previous statements were false because they
were the result of pressure and exhaustion, also the result
of probably not understanding what's going on, not understanding Italian,
and not having a representative and not having an attorney.

(39:15):
And note that's allful.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
How can you have any kind of interrogation when there's
a huge language barrier.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
So let me just read a little bit of her
handwritten confession because I found it. 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 pressure of stress, shock,
and extreme exhaustion. Not only was I told I would
be arrested and put in jail for thirty years, but
I was also hit in the head when I didn't
remember facts correctly. I understand that the police are under

(39:44):
a lot of stress, so I understand the treatment I
received here. She's trying to be nice. She's like, understand,
I understand why they hit me in my head, because
they're under stress too. However, it was under this pressure
and after many hours of confusion, that my mind came
up with these ant In my mind, I saw Patrick
and flashes of blurred images. I saw him near the
basketball court. I saw him at my front door. I

(40:07):
saw myself cowering in the kitchen with my hands over
my ears because in my head I could hear Meredith screaming.
But I've said this many times so as to make
myself clear. These things seem unreal to me, like a dream,
and I am unsure if they are real things that
happened or just dreams. My head has made up to
try to answer the questions in my head and the
questions that I am being asked. But the truth is,

(40:29):
I am unsure about the truth. And here's why. And
then she goes into more. But I just wanted to
read that part because I think it's clear that she's
so distorted and stressed and overwhelmed that she doesn't even
understand at this point, like they're interrogating her all night long.
She's do you know when you don't have sleep.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
Oh yeah, no, terrific. You shouldn't be able to sign
confessions like pass a certain hour.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
I agree. You know. I can tell you one time
I've been the most tired in my life, and it's
when I was traveling in Europe and we took like
an all night train from somewhere to Rome, and I
hadn't slept in probably forty eight hours, and I'm telling you,
I was delirious. I wouldn't remember any conversation I had.
You probably could have robbed me and I probably could
have been sex trafficked, and I couldn't function. And when

(41:16):
people are in that kind of state where you don't
have sleep, you go into a dread lake stage.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
Yeah you can. You can start to see images, right
you hallucinate.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Hallucinate, that's the word exactly.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
So after this confession, Amanda was formally arrested, along with
Raphael and along with Patrick La Mumba, who she names
in her two original confessions. Amanda didn't know she was
charged with murder until after her arraignment three days after
entering prison, so when she's arrested, she doesn't even understand
that she's being arrested. She doesn't understand what's going on.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
No, she might just think she's going to go and
identify or fill out some forms.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
By the way, I found the answer.

Speaker 3 (41:54):
Those two confessions that she signed in the middle of
the night were written in Italian. They were supposedly explained
to her in English, but they were typed up in Italian,
which is like ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Yeah, and then she signs it and she doesn't speak Italian, No,
but she signs off on.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
She signs it in English.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
They were charged with murder, sexual assault in staging a
break into Mislead investigators. Patrick was incarcerated for two weeks
before the police confirmed that he had as airtight alibi
and then he was released. So they arrest Amanda and
Raphaela and Patrick. And the prosecutor in this case is

(42:33):
hell bent on this being a If you remember the headlines,
they were so salacious. It had to do with this
being like this sex.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
Drug was she found to have?

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Well she was found I think well she was. I
think all she had, almost like a T shirt in
or underwear, was sexually assaulted and murdered. So this prosecutor
is just bit on making this story into this orgy
sex game. Situation that Amanda and her boyfriend were involved in,
and now that she named Patrick, it's this game of

(43:10):
the three of them and they all did this to
Meredith and they're all arrested. Then Patrick ends up having
this airtight alibi, so he's let go. So now he's
got a he's still there, so he's in the clear.
But they have what they considered to be evidence against Amanda,
DNA evidence. And so what happened was on November sixth,

(43:34):
they the investigators, they search Rafael's apartment because they're looking
for the murder weapon. So they go through his kitchen
and they look at all these different knives and then
they find a knife that they think looks like a
knife that could have been the murder.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
Weapon, which is knife.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
So they're just like, oh, that knife looks like it
could be the knife that killed her. So they take
that knife. But then you know what they do with
that knife. They take that knife and they put it
in a bag with all the other evidence.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
They mix it with the blood, they mix it.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
With the other evidence that was collected in this murder.
So all the evidence collected is all together in a bag.
Shar sharing DNA. Also, if you watch when you can
see the footage of the forensic team going in and
out of her of the cottage. No one has the
booties on, none of the investigators have has matt suits on.

(44:26):
You know, they're not separating the evidence behavior after a murder, right,
So there's a lot of problems they did with this investigation.
So they go through Raphael's apartment on November sixth, they
find this knife, they test this knife, and what they
say is they found Amanda Knox's DNA on the handle
of the knife, which, okay, that would make sense because

(44:48):
she said that they cooked a lot in his apartment.
But they also claim that they found a very very
very extremely small trace of MEREDITHS DNA on the blade
of the knife.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
Well, yeah, but you just said it was all mixed, right,
because it went from like the kitchen that went and
got mixed up with other DNA, right, that's ridiculous. This
Italian work is not very good. Well, the elite police
police need some training.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
Maybe they should have the postal police to it.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
Maybe maybe the post police are better.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
So prosecutors claimed that a mixture of Amanda's DNA and
MEREDITHS DNA were found in the bathroom sink and on
a bidet. However, the DNA sample on the knife was
very low quality and possibly mixed with other people's DNA,
and contamination was likely because multiple people had access to
the bathroom. So then on November twentieth of two thousand
and seven, someone else is finally arrested. Now, his name

(45:49):
is Rudy. I think his last name it's Geddy. Maybe
he was arrested in Germany. His DNA is found all
over Merediths room, everywhere, on her on the walls, every everywhere.
So and he also was a known burglar.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
How did they find this guy?

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Because they did the DNA testing and he's in the system,
and he's in the system, I assume, and so they
found him. His name's Rudy. It's g U E d E,
but I think it's Gwetty or Getty something like that.
But anyway, his DNA is all over the room. He's
also a known criminal, like he's a burglar. He's burglarized, okay,
And apparently he also has been arrested previously for some

(46:26):
type of sexual assault, so they arrest him. He also
confessed on a Skype interview because after they found his
DNA all over her room. They had a friend of his,
They wired a friend of his, had the friend skype
him to Skype. Is pre zoom skype Skype. We're talking

(46:47):
about flip phones and skyping people. They have him skype
him because he fled the Knight of Meritiths murder. He
flees Italy and he goes to Germany. So this friend
skypes him. He confesses to the friend that he was there,
that he murdered Meredith, and that Amanda was not present,
and the police have this entire conversation because they're listening

(47:09):
to the entire thing. So they extradite him back to Italy.
They arrest him for murder, but they also keep the
murder charges against Amanda and Raphaeli because they are still
stuck on this whole orgy sex game.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Like it sounds like it's a.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
You know, the world is watching because it's it's international, right,
because you have Italy in the United States, right, And
so maybe they didn't want to back down and make
it like oops, sorry, America, it's not her, it was
one of ours, and so they're just stuck on it.
Being a man in ox.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Well, I think the prosecutor was so stuck on it
being a mand in ox. And the other problem is
is that the prosecution went to Meredith Kircher's family and
said it is absolutely Amanda Knox. And when they told
her family that they cannot they can't psychologically break from that. Yeah,
do you know what I mean? Yea, even though the
evidence is clear in another direction.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
Probably needed someone to point the finger at, right, because
they were just so confused. So when that was given
to him, then they're probably they're running with it, right,
because then it makes him feel like they have us,
you know, they've solved the crime. Right.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
So although Rudy was arrested and had previously said that
Amanda had nothing to do with this this crime, she
wasn't there, he now helped authorities by making a statement
placing Amanda and Rafaeli at the murder scene. He claimed
it was a fight over money between Amanda and Meredith.
So basically, when Rudy isn't talking to police and he's
talking to his friend over Skype, he says Amanda wasn't there,

(48:46):
she had nothing to do with it. I did it
because he doesn't know the police are listening. So he's honest, right,
and he's just talking to his buddy. But then after
he's arrested, he then he starts implicating her, because clearly
that's what after your arrests said. You're like, oh wait,
it wasn't me, It's not my DNA everywhere, it is her.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
She was there Skype?

Speaker 2 (49:06):
What Skype?

Speaker 1 (49:07):
What Skype?

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Let me.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
Let's talk about the media in this case, because, as
we talked about previously, the media frenzy over Amanda Knox
was insane. In this twenty sixteen documentary I watched, there
is a journalist for The Daily Mail name Nick Pisa,
and he drives me absolutely nuts. He is so excited
to talk about all the cover pages he got because

(49:31):
he was reporting on Amanda Knox, and he talks about
journalistic integrity. However, all of his headlines are foxy Knoxy
and sex crazy, drug fueled orgies. And he's not presenting
this case.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
He's not researching.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
No, I mean, is he writing articles about the the
problem in the DNA analysis? Is he writing articles about
Rudy being there in his DNA everywhere and Rudy's confession?
Is he writing articles about how she's being interrogated in
a language she doesn't understand? No, you know what he's doing.

(50:10):
He's getting on her MySpace page and he's finding.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
Now we have flip phones, yes, Skype and my Space.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
So he gets on her MySpace page and there is
a photo of her. So before she went to Perusia,
I guess her and her sister went to Germany and
they went to this World War two museum and there's
a picture of her in her MySpace page, like holding
this machine gun and like laughing.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
Well there's the murder weapon.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
So they take that photo and they blast that photo
everywhere like she's like, she's a maniac, she's a murderer,
she's a crazy psycho.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
Look at her this World War two machine gun.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Then they find a picture of Rafaeltium, probably on his
MySpace page, of him dressed up for Halloween with a hat.
So these tabloid, these these media photos are of her
with a machine gun and him with a machete, and
it's all about they're these crazy, crazed, you know, murderers.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Did they searched their Aol accounts?

Speaker 1 (51:15):
I don't know, probably, but they called her Foxy Noxy
because that's what she that's what she called herself on MySpace,
Foxy Noxi, Foxy Noxy and then that became her moniker.
So it was like everything was like Foxy Noxy and
all these images of her and it was a media storm.
Now you tell me how this girl can get a
fair trial when the media has already condemned her.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Oh yeah, and you know what. The other interesting thing
is Rudy and she signed confessions supposedly.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
Yeah. Well, and the thing about Rudy is he's clearly
he's guilty. He's guilty. There was no.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Media, No, he's one of them.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
No media surrounding was the Italian Well no, he he
was from somewhere else European, European I think, and he
was living in Italy and then he fled to Germany.
He was kind of a drifter. It seemed to me
like just you know, but there was no media coverage
when he was arrested, and there was no there was hardly.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
Eight I never heard of him, not that I researched.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
But any media coverage when he was on trial and
he was found guilty of the murder. Nothing, No one
was interesting.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
He was selling guilty of the murder.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
Yes, well so was she initially.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
Oh wow, yeah that and see I never heard that, right,
I'm proving your theory.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
Right, all right, So we get to Rudy's trial. Rudy
goes on trial. He's convicted trial. They have separate trials.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
So does he speak Italian?

Speaker 1 (52:38):
I don't. I think he does speak Italian. So he
goes on this fast track trial. I don't know what
that means. This must be an Italian thing. But this
trial allowed for a shorter process before only a judge,
no a speedy trial, no live witnesses, and a one
third reduction in sentence if you're convicted. So his fast
track trial begins in Perugia. This is in two thousand

(52:58):
and eight. He's convicted of murder, sexual assault, and theft,
and he sentenced to thirty years in prison, but it's
later reduced to sixteen years because of he because he
did the fast track. When I think fast track, I
think when I drive on.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
The That's funny.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
It's like, if you choose for a speedy trial, you get.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Like half this sentence. So anyway, he only so he
so he sexually assaults and murders this young girl, and
he goes to prison for sixteen years.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
Would you want to do that? Would he be like, Oh,
I have a quick, that's weird.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Well guilty, I would take a fast track.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
Yeah, well you would try to also, you know, fight
it and not be guilty. Found guilty, Okay.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
So then Amanda and Rafaelle go on trial, and this
is in two thousand and eight. This is after Rudy
goes on trial and Rudy's found guilty. The preliminary hearings
examine whether there is enough evidence to go to trial.
Amanda and Rafaelle maintain that they were alone in their
apartment at the time of the murder. So then they
go on trial in Perugia in January through December of

(53:58):
two thousand and nine. So this first trial takes almost
a year. And wow, okay the chief prosecutor actually and
let me say one more thing. While she is in prison,
they mess with her because they tell her that she
has AIDS and she didn't. Do you believe that?

Speaker 3 (54:15):
Wow? They're like, we just took a blood sample and
you have AIDS.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Yes. So then she's completely freaked out, thinks she's going
to die, and she writes this journal talking about how
she has AIDS and then she writes down all of
her all the guys that she slept with and whether
she's a condom or not, and I think there was
like seven men. She's twenty something. She had sex apparently
with seven guys. Then they get a hold of this

(54:40):
journal that she hand wrote in prison, and that reporter
I was talking about, Nick Peas that gets a hold
of it and he wants to he publishes it.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
Just the part that I slept with all these people
kind of yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
So then they then again it just feeds into that
media frenzy of her being this you know.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Crazy sexy, well foxy.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Nazi, foxy noxie. So the chief prosecutor called about twenty
witnesses to discuss it.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
As this is early in the internet days too. Imagine
if like it was today, if Foxy NAXI would have
like a whole trail of stuff for them right to find.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
All right, So the prosecution calls like twenty witnesses. Then
the defense comes on and the defense began presenting its case,
with Amanda taking the stand as the primary witness. Rafaeli
did not testify. His attorneys decided it was strategically better
to keep attention on Knox, so Knox appeared confident while
testifying and carefully addressed questions about her unusual actions such

(55:37):
as showering after discovering the blood in her shared bathroom,
and why she initially accused Patrick La Mumba. She described
being slapped twice during her interrogation, demonstrating the strikes for
the court. She explained, quote, they were yelling at me
and I only wanted to leave and I was thinking
about my mom, who was arriving. Soon after she finished,

(55:57):
her lawyer praised her performance, saying she had done very well.
When the trial resumed after a two month summer recess,
a series of expert witnesses debated the forensic evidence. The
defense challenged the prosecution's DNA findings, arguing that they were
unreliable obviously because of all the contamination, and requested that
the judge authorize an independent review of the DNA. The judge, however,

(56:20):
denied the request, and both Amanda and Rafaela were found
guilty of murder on December fourth, two thousand and nine.
Amanda is sentenced to twenty six years in prison and
Rafaelle is sentenced to twenty five years in prison.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
And so she was in prison for two years. I
think four, Well, no, two, you're right, I'm sorry, but
seven ninety two years.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Yes, sorry, I went to law school. I don't do
math very well. Then in twenty eleven comes around their
first chance at an appeal. So Amanda and Rafaelle appeal
to the Court of Appeals of Perugia and their convictions
are overturned on appeal. This is in twenty eleven. The
court ruled that the DNA evidence was unreliable, that Amanda

(57:04):
was coerced into making statements and those were inadmissible, and
both were acquitted and released from prison in twenty eleven.

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Okay, so she's oh, so she was in there, So
she was in there for four years.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Yeah, you were correct in that sense.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
Yeah, I knew there was four years. So she actually
spent four years in prison in Italy. So she was
arrested in two thousand and seven, put into prison, and
then she got out on appeal in twenty eleven. So
she spent four years in an Italian prison. Then Amanda
returns to the United States and Rafaela resumed his life
in Italy.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
Then they broke up, well, they they broke.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
Up when they were in prison. There's some letters going
back and forth between the two eleven and they're not together.
I mean they only dated five days or six days.
I mean, we keep acting like this is this big,
like like long term Roman. You know what? This is
what I keep thinking about Raphael. That guy wishes he
never went to that music concert that night. Can you imagine, right,

(58:01):
this guy just went to a concert, saw a cute
blonde American girl, thought she was pretty, took her home,
made her dinner, had sex with her. The next thing,
he ends up in prison in Italy for four years.
So the Italian prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court, and
in twenty thirteen, the Supreme Court orders a retrial in Florence.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
She's now in the States.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Though, right, yes, so she's home, but now she has
to be tried again.

Speaker 3 (58:25):
And I assume that we extraditeer or whatever.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
No, she doesn't. They actually allow her to stay in
the United States and her lawyer represents her for this.

Speaker 3 (58:35):
Well that's a big suspense. Yeah, it's like at homegoing
what happened today?

Speaker 2 (58:39):
I know about me?

Speaker 1 (58:40):
If you watch the twenty sixteen documentary, it shows her
at home waiting for kidding the verdict. Can you imagine? No?

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Right, then I would be planning my escape.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Yeah, where are you going?

Speaker 3 (58:54):
I don't know, but I have a backup plan. Yeah,
Raphael's got overturned too, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
He goes home to the United States, he goes on
with his life in Italy. Then the prosecution appeals that decision,
so now it goes to the Supreme Court. So now
there is a retrial that they don't have to be at,
so they're not there in person. So the prosecution presented
some of the same evidence but relied on a different
interpretation than In January of twenty fourteen, Amanda and Rafaelle

(59:21):
were again found guilty of meritith murder. Amanda, who was
in the United States at the time, was sentenced to
twenty eight and a half years in prison, this time,
with Rafaela receiving twenty five. So now they've been reconvicted
on this new trial.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
Unreal.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
So March twenty seventh of twenty fifteen, they're finally acquitted
because they appeal that verdict. So Amanda and Rafaela appeal
the verdict and it goes to the Italian Supreme Court.
The Italian Supreme Court definitively ecquits them, ending a nearly

(59:59):
decade long legal battle in Italy. The court stated that
the evidence was insufficient and unreliable, and they confirmed that
the only person definitively involved in Meritith murder was Rudy Getty.
Wow can you imagine going through that how psychologically?

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
Oh yeah, I mean I she probably never finished school
or anything, but she did.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Oh wow, good for her home.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
She went home and she finished school.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
Okay, Yeah, stopped going to concerts, probably doesn't go to
doesn't have a roommate.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yeah. Yeah, she ended up getting married. She has a husband,
she has two children.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
Now that's good. You know, if there's any any prison
to be in, I guess it would be an Italian prison.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Why do you think because you get cheese and pasta.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Yeah yeah, Alfredo.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
It's like, we have the best cells, we have top quality,
we have three hundred thread count.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
I don't know if that's true, but I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
Well I take my chances in Italy, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
So, finally an Italian court upheld Amanda Knox's twenty twenty
four slander conviction for falsely accusing Patrick la Mumba. So
even though she was finally, finally, finally freed of the
murder charges and the sexual assault, she still has the
slander charges against her, and I guess you were saying
we were talking about this earlier where.

Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
Yeah explained the slander charges from who.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Well, when she named Patrick la Mumba in her confession,
he sued her for slander and she was convicted of that.
But you were saying here in the US, when when
you're being interrogated, like you wouldn't have been hell old.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
There's something called quasi immunity. So it's like, you know,
if I'm suing someone and then we go to court
and I'm at the podium and then I say he's lying,
he's a liar, he stole. That could be defamation if
if it's proven to not be true. But in a
court you have protection because otherwise no one would make

(01:01:52):
any allegations in courtroom.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Right. Well, and that's what we talked about earlier.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
I don't know if her interrogation or excuse me, her
confession written confession, and that should be protected otherwise she
would be fearful to anyone would be fearful to put
anything in writing because it could be used against him.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Right And that's the problem because she did name Patrick
after she But here's the thing. If the court finds
that she was coerced, you know what I mean, and
then the slander charge should be thrown out as well
because it doesn't right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Right as a result of But anyway, that was upheld.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
I guess at this point she's like, fine, you want
to slap me with a slander charge, take it out
in prison for four years and I've been going through
this for ten. So in twenty eighteen, she married Christopher Robinson,
an American author. Together they host a podcast called Labyrinths,
and they have two young children, a daughter and a son.
She also continues to speak out. I do know, you know,

(01:02:45):
I work a lot with the Edoson Center. She's actually
a board member at the Edison Center. She is an
advocate for the wrongly convicted. I've also seen her speak.
I think it was maybe I'm trying to figure out
when it was, but I think it was back in
maybe twenty eighteen.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
I might be earlier than that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
I went to LA and I watched her speak. It
was really interesting. She wrote a memoir called Waiting to
be Heard back in twenty thirteen, which details her time
in Italy, the trial, and her perspective on being wrongfully accused.
Despite her public presence. Knox has also sought privacy and
strongly advocates for victims' rights and media accountability. She continues

(01:03:21):
to reflect on her experience to help others understand the
consequences of wrongful accusations. And now, currently, Amanda Knox has
teamed up with none other than Monica Lewinsky. Oh yeah,
and they have teamed up to make a new Hulu
limited series called The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, which
I am very excited to watch. It is not a

(01:03:43):
documentary style, it is a reenactment like one like The
menindaz One. So Amanda Knox and Monica Lewinsky have collaborated
together on a new limited series about Knox's life entitled
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox. It is now streaming
on Hulu and Disney Plus. And Lewinsky appeared on Good
Morning America. They're on a media tour now. I keep

(01:04:04):
seeing that every time I get onto my newsfeed, which
is Instagram. But they're doing their press now because of
this new Hulu series that's coming out, and they described
why their partnership made sense. Lewinsky noted that both women
were publicly vilified at a very young age and became
distorted versions of themselves in the press. Knox added that

(01:04:24):
while their situations were different, they shared the same experience
of being interrogated and misrepresented on a world stage. Both
Knox and Lewinsky emphasize that the show acknowledges Meredith's kircher.
Knox stress the importance of ensuring Meredith was portrayed as
a real person, not just a character in the story,
noting that her presence continues to shape her life even today. Actually,

(01:04:46):
and I thought this was interesting too, because I didn't
know if Amanda and Rafael were in touch currently. I
didn't know if they were friendly. I didn't know if
they hated each other. I didn't know what their standing
was as of today. But it said that Raphael made
a public appearance at the premiere in New York City,
and that was just a couple of days ago. So

(01:05:09):
and then also I learned that in twenty twenty two,
Amanda Knox and Rafael reunited together in Italy when she
was there traveling with her family, and they met in
this small Italian town called Goobio. I don't know if
I'm saying that right, it's Gubbio. Because they had planned
to take a day trip there together the day that

(01:05:30):
Meredith was murdered. So clearly they're on good terms. And
he claims that when they're together, they don't talk about
any of this situation. They don't talk about prison, they
don't talk about being convicted, they don't talk about.

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):
At some point they did and now they've moved on right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
All right, anyway, thank you guys so much for listening
to the Amanda Knox story. Again. You can watch the
new Hulu series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox coming up,
and I think, well, once we watch it, we'll probably
talk about Amandaox a little bit again, just to add
if there's any new insights in that as well. This
is I found this story truly intriguing. I hope you

(01:06:09):
guys do as well. Also, one other thing that's very interesting,
Shane and I will be interviewing Amanda Knox in person
coming up soon. So when you're listening to this or
you're watching the Hulu series or the documentary that I
talked about from twenty sixteen, what questions do you have
for Amanda DM me, because I would love to know. Obviously,

(01:06:31):
we have questions that will come up with but also
we want to know your insights. What would you like
to ask her that we can ask her that day.
So anyway, thank you guys so much for listening to
Legally Brunette. Thank you, thank you,