April 14, 2025 • 46 mins
Amanda Knox has spent a decade trying to move on after being wrongfully convicted of murder. But over the years, one question lingered - why had the lead prosecutor in her case, Giuliano Mignini, been so determined to vilify her? Recently, she made the bold decision to reach out and ask him herself. On today's show: Amanda tells me about confronting the man who helped put her behind bars.
Note: this is part two of a two-episode series we’re running this month about Amanda Knox. It was recorded in February 2025. Listen to part one here.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin hay Slight Changers. A quick heads up, This is
part two of my conversation with Amanda Knox. If you
haven't listened to part one, we released it in the
Feed last week. I highly recommend you go back and listen.
You won't want to miss the full story. Okay, now
(00:35):
onto the show.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I have all of.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
This psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me, and the
last thing I want to do is to pass that
on to my daughter. So I have to figure this out.
Is this puzzle of my trauma. I have to figure
it out, and I have to figure it out.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Now, like yesterday.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Amanda Knox has spent a decade trying to move on
from the worst thing that ever happened to her, being
wrongfully convicted of murder, and she's felt haunted by one question,
in particular, why why was the lead prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini
so determined to vilify her?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I couldn't understand how like very immediately, like from day one,
people and particularly Giuliano Mignini, saw guilt in me that
wasn't there, And I realized that the only way to
truly understand was to ask him.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
On today's show Amanda confronts the man who helped put
her behind bars. I'm Maya Shunker, a scientist who studies
human behavior, and this is a slight change of plans,
a show about who we are and who we become
in the face of a big change. It is shocking
(02:16):
to me how many people still believe Amanda Knox is
guilty of murder, despite the lack of forensic evidence. The
real killer was identified and sentenced in two thousand and
eight after his DNA was discovered all over the body
of the victim, Meredith Kircher. Meredith was Amanda's roommate at
the time. Amanda was initially sentenced to twenty six years
(02:40):
in an Italian prison, and she spent nearly four years
behind bars before being acquitted on appeal. But even after
Amanda's release, after she returned to the US, the prosecution
continued to pursue her, and at one point they reconvicted her.
After a painful multi year legal battle, Amanda was finally
(03:03):
definitively exonerated in twenty fifteen by Italy's highest court. The
years of public vilification and fear have taken a massive
emotional toll on Amanda and recently, she made a bold
and surprising decision to reach back out to her prosecutor.
I wanted to know why. She told me part of
(03:24):
it had to do with becoming a mom and wanting
to unpack her trauma for the sake of her young children.
We started our conversation by going back to the moment
she received her initial prison sentence at age twenty two
and what it all meant for her long held dream
of one day having a family.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
The minute they handed down that twenty six year sentence
to me, I did the math, and I knew what
my body was capable of and what it was not
capable of, and I reasoned that I had not just
been condemned to prison time. I had been condemned to infertility,
which was devastating for me because I had always wanted
to be a mom, Like my mom made me sign
(04:05):
a contract in Green cran when I was like six
or seven years old, because I was already talking about
wanting to be a mom, and as a very young
single mom, she was like, I'm gonna make you sign
a contract that says you're gonna wait until you're thirty
to be a mom, because I seriously.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Like already like six or seven.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I was like, I can't wait to be a mom,
and she's like, will see so yeah, So to be
given the opportunity to like get out of prison as
a young person, still within my fertile years, I was
still up against a huge challenge, right Like I was
still the girl accused of murder, which felt very, very
(04:44):
ostracizing and very limiting to me at that point, and
so I still was at a loss of how I
was going to be able to have a family and
have a career and be a mom, Like, who would
ever want to date Amanda Knox with all the baggage
that comes with it. I was estranged from the world.
And then I got very, very lucky. In twenty fifteen,
(05:07):
I met for the first time my husband, and to
Chris's credit, he did not allow himself to be influenced
by all of the crap that was said about me
in the world. And I'm so grateful to him, because
if you really want to go down that Amanda Knox
rabbit hole, you can find whatever you want, and it's
very scandalous.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Here's a lot. And so he's.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Always been very mindful of being respectful of my humanity,
and allowing me to be the one to share with
him those moments of extreme life that I have lived.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So you and Chris get married, and you start trying
to have children, and then one day you find yourself
staring at a positive pregnancy test. Can you bring me
back to that moment and how things unfolded from there?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I mean, that moment was feeling like finally something was
going right in my life, like finally I was getting
back something that meant so much to me. Like all
the other things had been taken from me were so intangible,
but here was a true and tangible thing that had
been taken from me and that I had gotten back.
(06:19):
And so it truly felt like this gift and this
reclamation of my life. And then to have that to
you know, show up at the obgi N and to
hear them say there is no heartbeat, I like, I
(06:40):
wasn't prepared for that loss, because it had already that
this was my win. You know, I was not aware
of all of the statistics and how common it is
to miscarry all of that, Like, I just didn't know.
I had never been pregnant before, and so this is
the first time I had ever been pregnant, and then
(07:01):
for that to end in failure sent me down a
spiral of fear and pair and being triggered and wondering
if I was infertile because of things that had happened
to me in prison and the lack of health care,
Like I had no idea why it didn't work and
why this being just didn't continue to be and like
(07:27):
just that weird limbo space of like not even knowing
how to grieve, and so that that was really hard.
And I had this thought in my head, which is
so stupid, but I thought, like, didn't I deserve to
have this thing go right? Like all of these things
had gone wrong in my life, why didn't this thing
(07:48):
go right?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Why?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
It almost felt like I was being punished again, Like
why am I being punished? Like what did I do wrong?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah? I found so much resonance in the reaction that
you had to the miscarriage, beyond your expected grief, this
feeling of cosmic and justice right that since you had
suffered so much in the past, the universe in some
way owed you a perfect pregnancy, which is so stupid,
(08:19):
but it is such a natural part of our psychology.
I mean, there's a concept that I've been exploring lately
called belief in a just world, which basically says that
we get what we deserve in life, we get out
what we put in. Good people get good things, bad
people get bad things. And how much any one of
us believes in a just world varies quite a bit.
(08:41):
But what was so interesting to me is that you
maintained your belief in this kind of justice despite everything
you went through, Like you still, in this visceral way,
felt that the moral scales should balance in the universe.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Yeah, that's a really interesting way of framing it, because
you're right, I had every reason to believe that there
was no justice, and I could be absolutely cynical about reality,
and of course I lost my baby. What else was
I going to do? And like the fact that it
really blindsided me is demonstrative of the fact that I
(09:21):
am very, very stubbornly optimistic.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
In the end, I guess, yes.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's what I glean from it, for sure, because I
could totally imagine having the opposite response, just one of
sheer cynicism, just extreme nihilism. There's no meaning or purpose
or semblance of order in the universe. And it's so
funny because despite my knowledge of this concept, and despite
(09:47):
my understanding of how irrational it is to believe this,
I fall prey to this so often, even though, of
course my rational brain is like, there's no such thing
as being entitled to anything in this world, right, And
so I just your story has so many exceptional components
to it. But what I find so captivating are these
(10:08):
themes is that emerge from your story that all of
us can relate to. I mean I related to that.
I related to the story that you described of wanting
kids from the time that you were six or seven
years old. I was having imaginary calls with my neighbors
about my rambunctious kids, and then I was like, I.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Loved how you were already like a jaded mom, you know,
a little Bobby, such a terror Martha or whatever names
I was using at the time, And it's so cute,
and I'm.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Curious to know. So what it was that compelled you
to motherhood, Like what were your hopes and dreams?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I think that it has to do with just how
awesome of a mother I have. I've always felt, always, always,
always that I was cradled by her, like that I
was supported by her, that any time that something could
ever go wrong in my life, I could turn to
(11:05):
her and she would be there. And so I really
was given a model of what an ideal mom is
from a very young age, and of course that has
proved itself over the course of time. My mom has
been there for me and through extreme circumstances. But it
all comes down to that love for another being that
(11:29):
goes beyond any love that you could have for yourself.
It is just that wholehearted embrace of another person that
I just know intuitively because it was given to me
from the day I was born.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I wanted to do that.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Wow. Yeah, it's very stirring to hear you describe that
relationship and what a gift she gave you. Today, I'm
so delighted to share that you're a mom to two kids.
You have your daughter, Eureka, your son Echo.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, I'm in the thick of it.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I'm curious to know about your experience of motherhood and
how it's been informed by you by the trauma that
you faced. And one of the most primal instincts that
parents have is to protect their children from harm and suffering.
I mean, you write that your first words to Eureka
(12:22):
after she was born, were I'm sorry, Yeah, And it
was just in response to the fact that, like every newborn,
she was crying, right she came out of the womb crying,
and you felt that just visceral instinct to protect her
from pain. And as someone who has been through so
much needless suffering in your life, I want to understand
(12:43):
how that's informed how you think about your role as
a parent to both Eureka and Echo.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah, trauma has really interesting ways of presenting itself in
your life. And I feel like grief and the processing
of traumatic experiences manifest in different ways as you change
and grow as a human being over time. And one
of the big ways that I have been sort of
forced to process everything that happened in Italy was becoming
(13:14):
a mother and feeling that sense of urgency, like even
while she I was still pregnant and she was on
the way, but I'm getting bigger and bigger, and I
can feel her and I know she's coming, and I'm like,
oh my god. I was like thinking, like, I have
all of this psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me,
and the last thing I want to do is to
pass that on to my daughter. So I have to
(13:37):
figure out how do I hold my arms around that,
how do I keep that to myself, and how do
I try to derive something good from that? My daughter
is following me in my wake, and so I'm hoping
that I'm planting seeds and not just dropping garbage in
my wake for her to encounter. I want those to
(13:59):
be things that are of value, that can be of
assistance to her in her life. And so I was thinking, Okay,
I have to I have to figure out, I have
to figure this out. This is this puzzle of my trauma.
I have to figure it out, and I have to
figure it out now, like yesterday, and and one of
those puzzle pieces was what is the difference between pain
(14:24):
and suffering? Because one is inevitable and the other is not.
And indeed, like by giving birth to her, her first
experience of the world was pain. And I felt so
bad about that, Like it didn't it didn't even occur
(14:47):
to me that that would be her first ever experience
outside of the womb until it was happening. And then
obviously she was being squeezed out and it was not
pleasant for her, and she's coming and she's screaming and
I'm just going, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Like
I have given existence to you, and that existence is
(15:07):
going to be painful, and I can't take that away.
As much as I want to, like as much as
I wish that I could take that pain that you're feeling,
I can't.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
But the one thing that I do know that I
can teach her is that there don't have to be
layers of pain on top of the pain that we
inevitably experience. There don't have to be meta experiences of
pain on top of pain that make it harder to
get past the immediate pain that we feel. Pain is
(15:47):
an automatic feeling that you do not choose to feel
as a result from certain things that happen.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So you jam your toe in the door jam.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
You feel pain, or you lose someone that you love,
you feel pain. Suffering is the pain of feeling that
you shouldn't be feeling. That pain is when you convince
yourself that the world isn't as it should be, and
therefore there is a level of pain on top of
the pain that cannot be resolved, and that doesn't really
(16:20):
go away until you accept reality as it is. It
is a pain that will persist because the world isn't
the way that you think it should be. The world
just is the way it is. And so I try
to always accept the pain that just comes with being
a being in the world, and to allow myself to
(16:43):
let go of the meta levels of pain that come
from me imposing my ideas about how the world should
be on the way the world is and being able
to demonstrate that to my daughter is one of my
greatest weird silver linings to this cloud of like, Oh,
I've learned a very extremely valuable skill over the course
(17:06):
of this very extreme circumstance, which is recognize that difference
and to know what to do about it.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So is it correct to say then that you see
your role as a mom as not to shield your
children from pain, which is inevitable and probably a vital
part of growth, but instead to equip them with the
cognitive tools they need to be able to differentiate between
pain and suffering and to learn, in the throes of
(17:36):
suffering how to climb their way out. Totally, you talked
about yourself as being this just like unfailing optimist, right,
you can almost can't help your optimism but which is
a wonderful genetic disposition to have. You know, many of
us form our beliefs about how the world works based
(17:57):
on messages that we receive in childhood, right, And obviously
your children will absorb messages from so many places. One
day they will read your Wikipedia page, they will read
the articles. But before that moment in time, what kind
of philosophy are you trying to instill in your children
(18:19):
about the kind of world they're growing up in.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Oh my, that's a great question, because that's a really
interesting question because I've not posed it to myself that way.
I've more posed it. As you encounter hardships in your life,
what do you do about them? I'm thinking of all
the times that baby Echo pulls Eureka's hair and how
(18:45):
frustrated she is by that, and I try to explain
to her, like I'm going to talk to him, but
I want you to know that he doesn't understand yet.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And I feel like adults are like that too.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Some people are just not cognitively there to acknowledge that
something they've done to harm someone, even if it was unintentional,
is meaningful. And you can do something about that, and
you can learn from it like that that is still
a skill that adults are learning to this day. And
(19:18):
I think that maybe is a way of thinking about
the world that I'm trying to impart on. Eurekas like, yes,
like sometimes things happen and they shouldn't have happened, and
we can do our best to try to make sure
that doesn't happen. But I can't promise you that it
won't because some people are not ready to learn from
their mistakes yet.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
It is a very optimistic posture to have because you
are you are allowing for redemption in everyone. You're granting
people a growth mindset, essentially that there is room for
that edification to happen right absolutely insight they need.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
I think it would be an unrealistic expectation to not
expect people to grow, because I feel like we all
tend to grow, especially when we encounter obstacles are hardship.
I am always looking for an opportunity to grow in
what happens to me, and so maybe I'm just projecting
(20:17):
that perspective of humanity onto everyone else.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
With this perspective in mind, do you feel like, in
your heart of hearts you can truthfully share with your
children that you still believe the world is a fundamentally
good place filled with fundamentally good people.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Hm uh hmm.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Do I believe that the world is a fundamentally good
place full of fundamentally good people.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think that.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Unless you're truly a psychopath, you encounter the world with
the idea of wanting to do your best in it,
and therefore you want to achieve not just what is
(21:17):
good for you, but what is good for other people too.
Maybe you have some people's best interests over others. But
I do think that we all think of ourselves as
a hero of our own story. We're all good guys
in our minds, which I think lends to the intention
to be a good guy, even if ultimately we trick
(21:38):
ourselves into thinking that the bad that we're doing is good.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
You're saying, even for those people, there are justifications in
place that at least make them think best. Yeah, I
think that they're acting in alignment with their axioms. However
flawed their axioms are, for example, exactly exactly so.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
I feel like the drive to do the right thing
or be a good person is in everyone. The problem is,
how is that drive manifesting itself. That is where I
can't make any promises because the world is full of
crazy idea and people get attached to them and then
try to manifest them as an expression of trying to
(22:16):
be a good person.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Have you thought about how you plan to share your
story with your kids one day and when that might be,
and do you find yourself kind of rehearsing parts of
it in your head, you know, as you go about
your life or fall asleep at night.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Well, the cats out of the bag already.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Which is how old is Yureka? Now?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
She is three and a half, and it's coming up
because a lot of the work that I do is
around criminal justice reform and telling my story. I'm executive
producing a Hulu show that's based upon my first memoir,
Waiting to be Heard. And so my daughter, just by
(23:00):
virtue of being around me, has become aware that there
is a story, and she has asked me what is
that story? And I always take this position of be
honest in an age appropriate way, So I tell her
a very condensed and simplified version of the story, which
(23:24):
is when mommy was younger, Mommy went to Italy and
someone hurt her friend, and then the Italian police hurt mommy,
and mommy was sad for a long time and she
was in jail. But then mommy was freed and mommy
came home and Mommy met Papa and we fell in love,
and then we had you, and now mommy's happy.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Sorry. I don't mean to get emotional. Sorry, can I
just say, like, I am so happy that you get
to have this like as my friend.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Thanks mamma.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
It fills me with the deepest joy that, uh, something
that meant so much to you, Oh my gosh, no,
thank you, something that meant so much to you is
something that you you get to have in this lifetime.
Like it's unspeakable joy for me.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Thank you, Maya.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
I mean, I feel really really lucky, Like I am alive,
I am healthy, I am safe, I have a home,
I have a husband, I have children. Like all of
the things that I thought were gone are here and
I'm so lucky. So thank you for feeling that with me, though,
(24:37):
because like it's true, it like any one of those
things in a moment could have been taken away, and
so that is not lost on me.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Every day I wake up in the morning, We'll.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Be back in a moment with a slight change of plans.
The chief prosecutor in Amanda's wrongful murder conviction was a
(25:15):
man named Giuliano Minini. From the start, Minini clung to
his bizarre and unfounded theory that Amanda killed Meredith as
part of a sex field satanic ritual, despite no real
evidence to support it. This narrative caught on like wildfire
in the European tabloids, and public opinion turned against Amanda
(25:38):
before the trial even started. Minini ignored crucial DNA evidence
from the real killer, and he relied on statements Amanda
had made under duress when she was interrogated for more
than fifty hours in the days following the murder. The
High Court that definitively exonerated Amanda would later cite glaring
(25:59):
errors and investigative amnesia in the case. And so when
I heard that Amanda recently reached out to her prosecutor,
I was. She told me she was compelled by one question,
the why question.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Why did this happen to me? I still couldn't really
figure it out, and it really bothered me because I
couldn't understand how like very immediately, like from day one,
people and particularly Giuliano Mignini saw guilt in me that
(26:38):
wasn't there, and I didn't understand why. But I was
not satisfied with a lot of the sort of answers
that were proposed by people around me, which is, ah,
he's an idiot, or ah, you know, he's a corrupt guy,
and he didn't care if you were innocent or not.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
He just wanted to blame somebody.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Like there were a lot of different messages coming my
way about what his motivations were, and none of that
felt true. I could like, I could not imagine him
just sitting back in his you know, prosecutor's office, Like
he's not sitting there with mister Burns's fingers cackling about
(27:22):
how he has an innocent girl in prison and who
cares if she's guilty or not. Like he is a
person who believes that he is doing the right thing,
and that he who believes that he's a good person,
and yet and yet he was capable of so much harm,
and not just harm to me, but like harm to
everyone involved, principally Meredith's family, who are now left with
(27:44):
this confusing idea of like, what really happened to our daughter?
Was this girl in on it or not did she
get away with it? Like? The idea like that is
that is psychological torture when they deserved closure, and they
deserved direct and clear answers to what happened to Meredith.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
And so.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
I I wanted to understand why, and I realized that
the only way to truly understand was to ask him.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
I'm interested in the fact that you were so quickly
willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in
terms of his intentions and motivation. Right, you very quickly
did away with the reductionist versions of him. He's just evil,
he's ego obsessed. You know, all he cares about is
his reputation, blah blah blah. And to me, this hearkens
back to the philosophy you shared with me earlier, which
(28:40):
is this feeling that by and large, people try to
be good and sometimes they just don't understand yet.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Right, Yes, So, having gone through the experience of being
viewed in the worst possible light and being viewed as
a monster as this like black and white villain, I
intuitively felt that I shouldn't do the same thing, which
is to think of another human being in those terms.
And I I really did want to see the good
(29:11):
in him. I wanted to understand how he was the
hero of his own story and then hopefully change his mind,
like I'm gonna be honest, Like I thought, if only
he could see who I really was, Like he didn't
know me from anybody, and he came to know me
(29:33):
in the context of a murder investigation, so of course
he's going to see me from this sort of suspicious,
adversarial lens. I mean, I knew what that felt like.
As soon as I discover that this crime scene was
in my house and that my roommate had been murdered,
suddenly everybody seemed more sinister. I started to think, Oh
my god, could that guy who once gave me a
(29:55):
ride on a Vespa home maybe he's the murderer because
he now knows where our Like who knows like that?
It gives you this like cognitive opening where suddenly everything
can be seen in the worst possible light. And I
was wondering and like, is it possible for me to
have a relationship with him that isn't adversarial and that
(30:16):
is coming from a place of really wanting to understand?
But how do you do that? And one of the
things that I realized was it was not going to
work if I came in with an adversarial stance. I
couldn't just write him a letter and be like, doctor Juliantomannini.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
How dare you? You know you were wrong? And how
dare you?
Speaker 3 (30:38):
And you know, like that was not going to get
me anywhere, because that was going to set the terms
of our relationship in these terms that we had known
all along, that these adversarial, accusational terms. And instead I
tried to think, what in the world do we have
in common? Because we have something in common. Every person
(31:02):
has something in common, and if I could only find
common ground with him, maybe that would be.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
The first step.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
And it wasn't hard for me to find that common
ground with him. It was right there to see, which
is that this case got out of control in the media,
and everyone, not just me, got turned into a sort
of two dimensional cartoon version of ourselves. And I knew
that he felt misrepresented in the press, and so I
(31:34):
reached out to him and I said, I don't know
who you are. All I know is that you are
my prosecutor and you're scary. Therefore, but like I know
that you were misrepresented in the press, and I was
misrepresented in the press, and I feel like we have
that in common. And I'm wondering, do you want to
talk to me about who you really are? And you know,
(32:02):
never underestimate the element of surprise because I surprised him,
and I surprised him so much. We ended up corresponding
over email for years before I actually ever met him
in person. And I can't tell you so much of
it was like the banal stuff of just like talking
(32:26):
to your uncle who lives in another country, like oh,
how are the dogs doing? Oh? You know, like, oh,
I went on a walk today and it was a
beautiful rain, you know, like I love the rain. So
I'm learning things about him, like I learned that he
loves to listen to Wagner. I learned that he's super
into Lord of the Rings and you know, and like
(32:46):
he sees himself as like King Theoden and me like Aowin.
And it's just like but like these little moments that
are like you do.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
You know what you're saying? Like they are It seemed
like he was always.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Sort of dropping little hints to me about like how
he really felt about the case through these little personal details,
like does he understand what it means. If he's such
a big Lord of the Rings fan, he knows that
aowen's worst fear is to be locked in a cage.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, so you felt like there are these little nuggets
of contrition. Is that right? Yeah? Contrition?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And then I kept questioning myself. I was like, am
I reading into this?
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Or like a really great example where he sent me
this movie to watch. He said, oh my gosh, you
have to watch this movie. It's one of my favorite
movies about Detective Micrae and it's a case where Detective
Migree realizes that somebody that he had condemned to death
for murder is actually innocent, and so he orchestrates this
(33:49):
man's secret release from prison and then follows him around
until he finds out who the real murderer is.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
And I'm just like, what, Like is he is this him?
Like I kept thinking, is this him admitting that he
was wrong? Or am I reading too much into this?
Speaker 3 (34:08):
And so like there was a lot in the correspondence
that gave me hope to believe that he was on
the cusp of like telling me, but maybe not telling
me because he didn't want it. In writing and so
is he finding other ways to tell Like, so it's
been this weird unraveling of a code, and also like
(34:31):
just allowing myself to just accept it for whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
How did your family react to hearing that you wanted
to reach out to this guy? Like were they at
all convinced by your curiosity, by your need to understand? Why?
Speaker 2 (34:50):
No is the short answer to that question.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
So with your family to be clear, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yeah, and I get it.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
And like, honestly, if this had happened to my daughter
and I was now watching her have empathy and compassion
and curiosity for her the person who had harmed her,
I would be afraid that she would be setting herself
up for pain that she didn't have to feel. And
I would ask of her, like, what do you think
(35:18):
you need from this person? Why are you holding on
to this person as if you need him to be better?
And you know that's a legitimate that's a legitimate question.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Why does he have to be in unlock for any
exactly in your life?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Right?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
That's giving him a kind of power that he simply
doesn't deserve exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
And actually that was a crucial question that I asked
myself as I got closer and closer to meeting with him,
is I like, I had to face this idea of like, wait,
am I just in a weird Stockholm situation and I'm
like fixated on him?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
And do I actually need him?
Speaker 3 (35:55):
And I had a conversation with this person named David Zelman,
and he suggested to me the idea that I did
not in fact need to talk to Juliata Menedi, that
I did not need anything from him, and then he
gave me this very very radical idea that maybe, just
maybe I might be feeling so drawn to him because
(36:18):
I have something to give him. And that was the
switch that flipped for me where I thought, Yes, this
is not about him and what he is capable of giving.
This is about me and what I am capable of giving.
(36:41):
And I know that I am capable of being kind
to this man, and by God, I am going to
do it and no one can stop me. And that's
what it ultimately came to be about. It's not about him.
(37:01):
It's about me and what I have in me and
what I feel compelled to give that didn't need to
be given, and that was not even asked for.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Yes, well, because notably when you did actually meet him
in person. You brought your husband with you, you had
your daughter with you. He was not in writing. But
he didn't extend an apology.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Right Yeah, so what he did say versus what he
didn't say, right, Like, he didn't say I'm sorry, he
didn't say I was wrong, but he did say I
believe you. He said, if I were asked to prosecute
(37:48):
this case again, I would not.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
He said that me reaching out to him was one
of the most important things that had ever happened to him,
and he said that he was in awe by it.
And I think the really interesting thing to think about
is you can come away from an experience like that
(38:18):
being deeply disappointed or being pleasantly surprised, and it's really
your choice. Like the answers that I got from him
were not always satisfying, but they were interesting and they
(38:40):
were revelatory. There was a person who I was talking
to who was just like, so frustrated by the end
of reading my books. She was like, I mean, he
gives you this, but he doesn't give you that, Like
what is he you know? What is going on here?
And I was like, honey, like there are two ways
of looking at the world. You either look at the
world like a department store or like a thrift store.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Now a department store.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
You can go in and you can get the little
black dress that you saw on sale online and in
your size whenever you want. And that's how it is.
And you can pretend that the world is like that,
but that's not really how the world is. The world
is really like a thrift shop. You go in and
you don't know what you're gonna find. And if you
have your mindset on that little black dress that you
(39:25):
saw online that's in your side to find it, you
are not.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Going to find it.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
But if you are fixated on only finding that, you
are not going to be able to find the things
that appear to you that you may be just delighted
by that you are not expecting, like a mushroom shaped lamp.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
It's you know, like, so this is like how I
don't know that.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
It's like such a silly way of like thinking about it,
but like I try to encounter the world and life
and people like you would a thrift store, and like
being open to being pleasantly surprised instead of having these
very specific expectations that will lead to disappointment. My mom
was not satisfy. She was disappointed. She was looking for
(40:11):
that black dress in her size. She wanted him to
say I was wrong and I'm sorry, and I'll do
everything in my power to make it right. And he
didn't say any of those things, and she wasn't able
to hear what he was able to say. He said
that he wanted to be a source of healing in
my life, that he didn't want me to suffer anymore
(40:35):
for what I had been through.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
And I heard that.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I could hear that in a way that my mom couldn't,
And so I came away from that experience feeling healed,
not just by what he said, but also by the
fact that I had put myself in a position in
order to hear it.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
You mentioned him being in awe. I, frankly, I think
we all are, because what I see is just masterclass
for the rest of us what it means to bridge
one of the greatest gaps that can exist between two humans.
I mean, it is a masterclass in human empathy. You know,
(41:24):
your book is called Free, and you've spent years searching
for freedom, both from behind bars and then after you
were released, And God, I hate that this is true,
but even recently, just for listeners to know, you were
found guilty of slander for statements that you made in
(41:45):
the days following Merediths murder. Police interrogated you for over
fifty hours over five days, and under extreme coercion, you
ended up implicating your boss at the time in the
murder of Meredith. And despite your appeal, despite the fact
that a European high court found Italy to be in
violation of your human rights during the interrogation, Italy Top
(42:09):
Court still upheld this conviction. In twenty twenty five. This happened.
And so I mean, like so frustrating. I'm just like,
oh my god, it's so frustrating. And so what I
want to ask aman is like, what have you learned
about freedom? What is freedom to you?
Speaker 3 (42:29):
For me, freedom means being able to see and engage
with the world with a clear mind, because if you
are engaging with the world as it should be, you
are perpetually going to be ineffective. You're going to encounter
obstacles because you're going to be thinking about what to
(42:50):
do in the terms of what you think the world
should be like, and not the world as it is.
And I think the reason why I had such an
effective approach to Minnini was because I saw clearly the
situation for what it was, and that gave me a
degree of freedom of choosing how I wanted to engage
(43:13):
with it. There's a Zen saying, I'm a Zen practitioner
that if you really really sit with the world and
with reality in the present moment, and you just sit
and look at it clearly, you'll realize that it's okay.
It's not good, it's not bad, it's it's okay. You
are okay, and being okay is a great place from
(43:39):
which to choose how you are going to be in
the world. You're not coming from a place of fear,
You're not coming from a place of anger. You are
coming from a place of being okay and choosing to
be your best self in the next moment. And that
makes me feel like, no matter what the external circumstances
(44:02):
I'm facing are, like, I know that I am free
to act the way I want to.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Despite the fact Italy's highest court upheld Amanda's slander conviction,
she won't need to return to prison because of the
four years she already spent wrongfully incarcerated To hear more
of Amanda's reflections on motherhood and the story of her
relationship with her prosecutor check out her new book, It's
called Free My Search for Meaning. Thanks so much for listening.
(45:04):
If you enjoyed this episode, we in the Slight Change
Family would so appreciate it if you could share it
with your family and friends. And you can sign up
for my free newsletter at Changewithmaya dot com. Join me
next week, when we hear from author and podcast host
Mel Robbins on her battle with control.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
I just started to say, let them. At any moment
in my life where things just felt stress with traffic,
let them the person's root in front of me, wet them.
My mom's in a bad.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Moot, let her read a bad move.
Speaker 5 (45:36):
And so I just started saying, let them, let them,
let them, And it was so profound.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
That's next week on A Slight Change of Plans. A
Slight Change of Plans is created, written and executive produced
by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Changed Family includes our
showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson, Morgan, our
producers Britney Cronin and Megan Luvin, and our sound engineer
(46:02):
Erica Huang, Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song and
Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks
to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks
to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of
Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. See you next week.
Pushkin hay Slight Changers. A quick heads up, This is
part two of my conversation with Amanda Knox. If you
haven't listened to part one, we released it in the
Feed last week. I highly recommend you go back and listen.
You won't want to miss the full story. Okay, now
(00:35):
onto the show.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I have all of.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
This psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me, and the
last thing I want to do is to pass that
on to my daughter. So I have to figure this out.
Is this puzzle of my trauma. I have to figure
it out, and I have to figure it out.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Now, like yesterday.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Amanda Knox has spent a decade trying to move on
from the worst thing that ever happened to her, being
wrongfully convicted of murder, and she's felt haunted by one question,
in particular, why why was the lead prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini
so determined to vilify her?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I couldn't understand how like very immediately, like from day one,
people and particularly Giuliano Mignini, saw guilt in me that
wasn't there, And I realized that the only way to
truly understand was to ask him.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
On today's show Amanda confronts the man who helped put
her behind bars. I'm Maya Shunker, a scientist who studies
human behavior, and this is a slight change of plans,
a show about who we are and who we become
in the face of a big change. It is shocking
(02:16):
to me how many people still believe Amanda Knox is
guilty of murder, despite the lack of forensic evidence. The
real killer was identified and sentenced in two thousand and
eight after his DNA was discovered all over the body
of the victim, Meredith Kircher. Meredith was Amanda's roommate at
the time. Amanda was initially sentenced to twenty six years
(02:40):
in an Italian prison, and she spent nearly four years
behind bars before being acquitted on appeal. But even after
Amanda's release, after she returned to the US, the prosecution
continued to pursue her, and at one point they reconvicted her.
After a painful multi year legal battle, Amanda was finally
(03:03):
definitively exonerated in twenty fifteen by Italy's highest court. The
years of public vilification and fear have taken a massive
emotional toll on Amanda and recently, she made a bold
and surprising decision to reach back out to her prosecutor.
I wanted to know why. She told me part of
(03:24):
it had to do with becoming a mom and wanting
to unpack her trauma for the sake of her young children.
We started our conversation by going back to the moment
she received her initial prison sentence at age twenty two
and what it all meant for her long held dream
of one day having a family.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
The minute they handed down that twenty six year sentence
to me, I did the math, and I knew what
my body was capable of and what it was not
capable of, and I reasoned that I had not just
been condemned to prison time. I had been condemned to infertility,
which was devastating for me because I had always wanted
to be a mom, Like my mom made me sign
(04:05):
a contract in Green cran when I was like six
or seven years old, because I was already talking about
wanting to be a mom, and as a very young
single mom, she was like, I'm gonna make you sign
a contract that says you're gonna wait until you're thirty
to be a mom, because I seriously.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Like already like six or seven.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I was like, I can't wait to be a mom,
and she's like, will see so yeah, So to be
given the opportunity to like get out of prison as
a young person, still within my fertile years, I was
still up against a huge challenge, right Like I was
still the girl accused of murder, which felt very, very
(04:44):
ostracizing and very limiting to me at that point, and
so I still was at a loss of how I
was going to be able to have a family and
have a career and be a mom, Like, who would
ever want to date Amanda Knox with all the baggage
that comes with it. I was estranged from the world.
And then I got very, very lucky. In twenty fifteen,
(05:07):
I met for the first time my husband, and to
Chris's credit, he did not allow himself to be influenced
by all of the crap that was said about me
in the world. And I'm so grateful to him, because
if you really want to go down that Amanda Knox
rabbit hole, you can find whatever you want, and it's
very scandalous.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Here's a lot. And so he's.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Always been very mindful of being respectful of my humanity,
and allowing me to be the one to share with
him those moments of extreme life that I have lived.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So you and Chris get married, and you start trying
to have children, and then one day you find yourself
staring at a positive pregnancy test. Can you bring me
back to that moment and how things unfolded from there?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I mean, that moment was feeling like finally something was
going right in my life, like finally I was getting
back something that meant so much to me. Like all
the other things had been taken from me were so intangible,
but here was a true and tangible thing that had
been taken from me and that I had gotten back.
(06:19):
And so it truly felt like this gift and this
reclamation of my life. And then to have that to
you know, show up at the obgi N and to
hear them say there is no heartbeat, I like, I
(06:40):
wasn't prepared for that loss, because it had already that
this was my win. You know, I was not aware
of all of the statistics and how common it is
to miscarry all of that, Like, I just didn't know.
I had never been pregnant before, and so this is
the first time I had ever been pregnant, and then
(07:01):
for that to end in failure sent me down a
spiral of fear and pair and being triggered and wondering
if I was infertile because of things that had happened
to me in prison and the lack of health care,
Like I had no idea why it didn't work and
why this being just didn't continue to be and like
(07:27):
just that weird limbo space of like not even knowing
how to grieve, and so that that was really hard.
And I had this thought in my head, which is
so stupid, but I thought, like, didn't I deserve to
have this thing go right? Like all of these things
had gone wrong in my life, why didn't this thing
(07:48):
go right?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Why?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
It almost felt like I was being punished again, Like
why am I being punished? Like what did I do wrong?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah? I found so much resonance in the reaction that
you had to the miscarriage, beyond your expected grief, this
feeling of cosmic and justice right that since you had
suffered so much in the past, the universe in some
way owed you a perfect pregnancy, which is so stupid,
(08:19):
but it is such a natural part of our psychology.
I mean, there's a concept that I've been exploring lately
called belief in a just world, which basically says that
we get what we deserve in life, we get out
what we put in. Good people get good things, bad
people get bad things. And how much any one of
us believes in a just world varies quite a bit.
(08:41):
But what was so interesting to me is that you
maintained your belief in this kind of justice despite everything
you went through, Like you still, in this visceral way,
felt that the moral scales should balance in the universe.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Yeah, that's a really interesting way of framing it, because
you're right, I had every reason to believe that there
was no justice, and I could be absolutely cynical about reality,
and of course I lost my baby. What else was
I going to do? And like the fact that it
really blindsided me is demonstrative of the fact that I
(09:21):
am very, very stubbornly optimistic.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
In the end, I guess, yes.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's what I glean from it, for sure, because I
could totally imagine having the opposite response, just one of
sheer cynicism, just extreme nihilism. There's no meaning or purpose
or semblance of order in the universe. And it's so
funny because despite my knowledge of this concept, and despite
(09:47):
my understanding of how irrational it is to believe this,
I fall prey to this so often, even though, of
course my rational brain is like, there's no such thing
as being entitled to anything in this world, right, And
so I just your story has so many exceptional components
to it. But what I find so captivating are these
(10:08):
themes is that emerge from your story that all of
us can relate to. I mean I related to that.
I related to the story that you described of wanting
kids from the time that you were six or seven
years old. I was having imaginary calls with my neighbors
about my rambunctious kids, and then I was like, I.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Loved how you were already like a jaded mom, you know,
a little Bobby, such a terror Martha or whatever names
I was using at the time, And it's so cute,
and I'm.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Curious to know. So what it was that compelled you
to motherhood, Like what were your hopes and dreams?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I think that it has to do with just how
awesome of a mother I have. I've always felt, always, always,
always that I was cradled by her, like that I
was supported by her, that any time that something could
ever go wrong in my life, I could turn to
(11:05):
her and she would be there. And so I really
was given a model of what an ideal mom is
from a very young age, and of course that has
proved itself over the course of time. My mom has
been there for me and through extreme circumstances. But it
all comes down to that love for another being that
(11:29):
goes beyond any love that you could have for yourself.
It is just that wholehearted embrace of another person that
I just know intuitively because it was given to me
from the day I was born.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I wanted to do that.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Wow. Yeah, it's very stirring to hear you describe that
relationship and what a gift she gave you. Today, I'm
so delighted to share that you're a mom to two kids.
You have your daughter, Eureka, your son Echo.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, I'm in the thick of it.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I'm curious to know about your experience of motherhood and
how it's been informed by you by the trauma that
you faced. And one of the most primal instincts that
parents have is to protect their children from harm and suffering.
I mean, you write that your first words to Eureka
(12:22):
after she was born, were I'm sorry, Yeah, And it
was just in response to the fact that, like every newborn,
she was crying, right she came out of the womb crying,
and you felt that just visceral instinct to protect her
from pain. And as someone who has been through so
much needless suffering in your life, I want to understand
(12:43):
how that's informed how you think about your role as
a parent to both Eureka and Echo.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah, trauma has really interesting ways of presenting itself in
your life. And I feel like grief and the processing
of traumatic experiences manifest in different ways as you change
and grow as a human being over time. And one
of the big ways that I have been sort of
forced to process everything that happened in Italy was becoming
(13:14):
a mother and feeling that sense of urgency, like even
while she I was still pregnant and she was on
the way, but I'm getting bigger and bigger, and I
can feel her and I know she's coming, and I'm like,
oh my god. I was like thinking, like, I have
all of this psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me,
and the last thing I want to do is to
pass that on to my daughter. So I have to
(13:37):
figure out how do I hold my arms around that,
how do I keep that to myself, and how do
I try to derive something good from that? My daughter
is following me in my wake, and so I'm hoping
that I'm planting seeds and not just dropping garbage in
my wake for her to encounter. I want those to
(13:59):
be things that are of value, that can be of
assistance to her in her life. And so I was thinking, Okay,
I have to I have to figure out, I have
to figure this out. This is this puzzle of my trauma.
I have to figure it out, and I have to
figure it out now, like yesterday, and and one of
those puzzle pieces was what is the difference between pain
(14:24):
and suffering? Because one is inevitable and the other is not.
And indeed, like by giving birth to her, her first
experience of the world was pain. And I felt so
bad about that, Like it didn't it didn't even occur
(14:47):
to me that that would be her first ever experience
outside of the womb until it was happening. And then
obviously she was being squeezed out and it was not
pleasant for her, and she's coming and she's screaming and
I'm just going, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Like
I have given existence to you, and that existence is
(15:07):
going to be painful, and I can't take that away.
As much as I want to, like as much as
I wish that I could take that pain that you're feeling,
I can't.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
But the one thing that I do know that I
can teach her is that there don't have to be
layers of pain on top of the pain that we
inevitably experience. There don't have to be meta experiences of
pain on top of pain that make it harder to
get past the immediate pain that we feel. Pain is
(15:47):
an automatic feeling that you do not choose to feel
as a result from certain things that happen.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So you jam your toe in the door jam.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
You feel pain, or you lose someone that you love,
you feel pain. Suffering is the pain of feeling that
you shouldn't be feeling. That pain is when you convince
yourself that the world isn't as it should be, and
therefore there is a level of pain on top of
the pain that cannot be resolved, and that doesn't really
(16:20):
go away until you accept reality as it is. It
is a pain that will persist because the world isn't
the way that you think it should be. The world
just is the way it is. And so I try
to always accept the pain that just comes with being
a being in the world, and to allow myself to
(16:43):
let go of the meta levels of pain that come
from me imposing my ideas about how the world should
be on the way the world is and being able
to demonstrate that to my daughter is one of my
greatest weird silver linings to this cloud of like, Oh,
I've learned a very extremely valuable skill over the course
(17:06):
of this very extreme circumstance, which is recognize that difference
and to know what to do about it.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So is it correct to say then that you see
your role as a mom as not to shield your
children from pain, which is inevitable and probably a vital
part of growth, but instead to equip them with the
cognitive tools they need to be able to differentiate between
pain and suffering and to learn, in the throes of
(17:36):
suffering how to climb their way out. Totally, you talked
about yourself as being this just like unfailing optimist, right,
you can almost can't help your optimism but which is
a wonderful genetic disposition to have. You know, many of
us form our beliefs about how the world works based
(17:57):
on messages that we receive in childhood, right, And obviously
your children will absorb messages from so many places. One
day they will read your Wikipedia page, they will read
the articles. But before that moment in time, what kind
of philosophy are you trying to instill in your children
(18:19):
about the kind of world they're growing up in.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Oh my, that's a great question, because that's a really
interesting question because I've not posed it to myself that way.
I've more posed it. As you encounter hardships in your life,
what do you do about them? I'm thinking of all
the times that baby Echo pulls Eureka's hair and how
(18:45):
frustrated she is by that, and I try to explain
to her, like I'm going to talk to him, but
I want you to know that he doesn't understand yet.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And I feel like adults are like that too.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Some people are just not cognitively there to acknowledge that
something they've done to harm someone, even if it was unintentional,
is meaningful. And you can do something about that, and
you can learn from it like that that is still
a skill that adults are learning to this day. And
(19:18):
I think that maybe is a way of thinking about
the world that I'm trying to impart on. Eurekas like, yes,
like sometimes things happen and they shouldn't have happened, and
we can do our best to try to make sure
that doesn't happen. But I can't promise you that it
won't because some people are not ready to learn from
their mistakes yet.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
It is a very optimistic posture to have because you
are you are allowing for redemption in everyone. You're granting
people a growth mindset, essentially that there is room for
that edification to happen right absolutely insight they need.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
I think it would be an unrealistic expectation to not
expect people to grow, because I feel like we all
tend to grow, especially when we encounter obstacles are hardship.
I am always looking for an opportunity to grow in
what happens to me, and so maybe I'm just projecting
(20:17):
that perspective of humanity onto everyone else.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
With this perspective in mind, do you feel like, in
your heart of hearts you can truthfully share with your
children that you still believe the world is a fundamentally
good place filled with fundamentally good people.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Hm uh hmm.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Do I believe that the world is a fundamentally good
place full of fundamentally good people.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think that.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Unless you're truly a psychopath, you encounter the world with
the idea of wanting to do your best in it,
and therefore you want to achieve not just what is
(21:17):
good for you, but what is good for other people too.
Maybe you have some people's best interests over others. But
I do think that we all think of ourselves as
a hero of our own story. We're all good guys
in our minds, which I think lends to the intention
to be a good guy, even if ultimately we trick
(21:38):
ourselves into thinking that the bad that we're doing is good.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
You're saying, even for those people, there are justifications in
place that at least make them think best. Yeah, I
think that they're acting in alignment with their axioms. However
flawed their axioms are, for example, exactly exactly so.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
I feel like the drive to do the right thing
or be a good person is in everyone. The problem is,
how is that drive manifesting itself. That is where I
can't make any promises because the world is full of
crazy idea and people get attached to them and then
try to manifest them as an expression of trying to
(22:16):
be a good person.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Have you thought about how you plan to share your
story with your kids one day and when that might be,
and do you find yourself kind of rehearsing parts of
it in your head, you know, as you go about
your life or fall asleep at night.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Well, the cats out of the bag already.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Which is how old is Yureka? Now?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
She is three and a half, and it's coming up
because a lot of the work that I do is
around criminal justice reform and telling my story. I'm executive
producing a Hulu show that's based upon my first memoir,
Waiting to be Heard. And so my daughter, just by
(23:00):
virtue of being around me, has become aware that there
is a story, and she has asked me what is
that story? And I always take this position of be
honest in an age appropriate way, So I tell her
a very condensed and simplified version of the story, which
(23:24):
is when mommy was younger, Mommy went to Italy and
someone hurt her friend, and then the Italian police hurt mommy,
and mommy was sad for a long time and she
was in jail. But then mommy was freed and mommy
came home and Mommy met Papa and we fell in love,
and then we had you, and now mommy's happy.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Sorry. I don't mean to get emotional. Sorry, can I
just say, like, I am so happy that you get
to have this like as my friend.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Thanks mamma.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
It fills me with the deepest joy that, uh, something
that meant so much to you, Oh my gosh, no,
thank you, something that meant so much to you is
something that you you get to have in this lifetime.
Like it's unspeakable joy for me.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Thank you, Maya.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
I mean, I feel really really lucky, Like I am alive,
I am healthy, I am safe, I have a home,
I have a husband, I have children. Like all of
the things that I thought were gone are here and
I'm so lucky. So thank you for feeling that with me, though,
(24:37):
because like it's true, it like any one of those
things in a moment could have been taken away, and
so that is not lost on me.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Every day I wake up in the morning, We'll.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Be back in a moment with a slight change of plans.
The chief prosecutor in Amanda's wrongful murder conviction was a
(25:15):
man named Giuliano Minini. From the start, Minini clung to
his bizarre and unfounded theory that Amanda killed Meredith as
part of a sex field satanic ritual, despite no real
evidence to support it. This narrative caught on like wildfire
in the European tabloids, and public opinion turned against Amanda
(25:38):
before the trial even started. Minini ignored crucial DNA evidence
from the real killer, and he relied on statements Amanda
had made under duress when she was interrogated for more
than fifty hours in the days following the murder. The
High Court that definitively exonerated Amanda would later cite glaring
(25:59):
errors and investigative amnesia in the case. And so when
I heard that Amanda recently reached out to her prosecutor,
I was. She told me she was compelled by one question,
the why question.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Why did this happen to me? I still couldn't really
figure it out, and it really bothered me because I
couldn't understand how like very immediately, like from day one,
people and particularly Giuliano Mignini saw guilt in me that
(26:38):
wasn't there, and I didn't understand why. But I was
not satisfied with a lot of the sort of answers
that were proposed by people around me, which is, ah,
he's an idiot, or ah, you know, he's a corrupt guy,
and he didn't care if you were innocent or not.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
He just wanted to blame somebody.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Like there were a lot of different messages coming my
way about what his motivations were, and none of that
felt true. I could like, I could not imagine him
just sitting back in his you know, prosecutor's office, Like
he's not sitting there with mister Burns's fingers cackling about
(27:22):
how he has an innocent girl in prison and who
cares if she's guilty or not. Like he is a
person who believes that he is doing the right thing,
and that he who believes that he's a good person,
and yet and yet he was capable of so much harm,
and not just harm to me, but like harm to
everyone involved, principally Meredith's family, who are now left with
(27:44):
this confusing idea of like, what really happened to our daughter?
Was this girl in on it or not did she
get away with it? Like? The idea like that is
that is psychological torture when they deserved closure, and they
deserved direct and clear answers to what happened to Meredith.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
And so.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
I I wanted to understand why, and I realized that
the only way to truly understand was to ask him.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
I'm interested in the fact that you were so quickly
willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in
terms of his intentions and motivation. Right, you very quickly
did away with the reductionist versions of him. He's just evil,
he's ego obsessed. You know, all he cares about is
his reputation, blah blah blah. And to me, this hearkens
back to the philosophy you shared with me earlier, which
(28:40):
is this feeling that by and large, people try to
be good and sometimes they just don't understand yet.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Right, Yes, So, having gone through the experience of being
viewed in the worst possible light and being viewed as
a monster as this like black and white villain, I
intuitively felt that I shouldn't do the same thing, which
is to think of another human being in those terms.
And I I really did want to see the good
(29:11):
in him. I wanted to understand how he was the
hero of his own story and then hopefully change his mind,
like I'm gonna be honest, Like I thought, if only
he could see who I really was, Like he didn't
know me from anybody, and he came to know me
(29:33):
in the context of a murder investigation, so of course
he's going to see me from this sort of suspicious,
adversarial lens. I mean, I knew what that felt like.
As soon as I discover that this crime scene was
in my house and that my roommate had been murdered,
suddenly everybody seemed more sinister. I started to think, Oh
my god, could that guy who once gave me a
(29:55):
ride on a Vespa home maybe he's the murderer because
he now knows where our Like who knows like that?
It gives you this like cognitive opening where suddenly everything
can be seen in the worst possible light. And I
was wondering and like, is it possible for me to
have a relationship with him that isn't adversarial and that
(30:16):
is coming from a place of really wanting to understand?
But how do you do that? And one of the
things that I realized was it was not going to
work if I came in with an adversarial stance. I
couldn't just write him a letter and be like, doctor Juliantomannini.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
How dare you? You know you were wrong? And how
dare you?
Speaker 3 (30:38):
And you know, like that was not going to get
me anywhere, because that was going to set the terms
of our relationship in these terms that we had known
all along, that these adversarial, accusational terms. And instead I
tried to think, what in the world do we have
in common? Because we have something in common. Every person
(31:02):
has something in common, and if I could only find
common ground with him, maybe that would be.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
The first step.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
And it wasn't hard for me to find that common
ground with him. It was right there to see, which
is that this case got out of control in the media,
and everyone, not just me, got turned into a sort
of two dimensional cartoon version of ourselves. And I knew
that he felt misrepresented in the press, and so I
(31:34):
reached out to him and I said, I don't know
who you are. All I know is that you are
my prosecutor and you're scary. Therefore, but like I know
that you were misrepresented in the press, and I was
misrepresented in the press, and I feel like we have
that in common. And I'm wondering, do you want to
talk to me about who you really are? And you know,
(32:02):
never underestimate the element of surprise because I surprised him,
and I surprised him so much. We ended up corresponding
over email for years before I actually ever met him
in person. And I can't tell you so much of
it was like the banal stuff of just like talking
(32:26):
to your uncle who lives in another country, like oh,
how are the dogs doing? Oh? You know, like, oh,
I went on a walk today and it was a
beautiful rain, you know, like I love the rain. So
I'm learning things about him, like I learned that he
loves to listen to Wagner. I learned that he's super
into Lord of the Rings and you know, and like
(32:46):
he sees himself as like King Theoden and me like Aowin.
And it's just like but like these little moments that
are like you do.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
You know what you're saying? Like they are It seemed
like he was always.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Sort of dropping little hints to me about like how
he really felt about the case through these little personal details,
like does he understand what it means. If he's such
a big Lord of the Rings fan, he knows that
aowen's worst fear is to be locked in a cage.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, so you felt like there are these little nuggets
of contrition. Is that right? Yeah? Contrition?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And then I kept questioning myself. I was like, am
I reading into this?
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Or like a really great example where he sent me
this movie to watch. He said, oh my gosh, you
have to watch this movie. It's one of my favorite
movies about Detective Micrae and it's a case where Detective
Migree realizes that somebody that he had condemned to death
for murder is actually innocent, and so he orchestrates this
(33:49):
man's secret release from prison and then follows him around
until he finds out who the real murderer is.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
And I'm just like, what, Like is he is this him?
Like I kept thinking, is this him admitting that he
was wrong? Or am I reading too much into this?
Speaker 3 (34:08):
And so like there was a lot in the correspondence
that gave me hope to believe that he was on
the cusp of like telling me, but maybe not telling
me because he didn't want it. In writing and so
is he finding other ways to tell Like, so it's
been this weird unraveling of a code, and also like
(34:31):
just allowing myself to just accept it for whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
How did your family react to hearing that you wanted
to reach out to this guy? Like were they at
all convinced by your curiosity, by your need to understand? Why?
Speaker 2 (34:50):
No is the short answer to that question.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
So with your family to be clear, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yeah, and I get it.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
And like, honestly, if this had happened to my daughter
and I was now watching her have empathy and compassion
and curiosity for her the person who had harmed her,
I would be afraid that she would be setting herself
up for pain that she didn't have to feel. And
I would ask of her, like, what do you think
(35:18):
you need from this person? Why are you holding on
to this person as if you need him to be better?
And you know that's a legitimate that's a legitimate question.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Why does he have to be in unlock for any
exactly in your life?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Right?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
That's giving him a kind of power that he simply
doesn't deserve exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
And actually that was a crucial question that I asked
myself as I got closer and closer to meeting with him,
is I like, I had to face this idea of like, wait,
am I just in a weird Stockholm situation and I'm
like fixated on him?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
And do I actually need him?
Speaker 3 (35:55):
And I had a conversation with this person named David Zelman,
and he suggested to me the idea that I did
not in fact need to talk to Juliata Menedi, that
I did not need anything from him, and then he
gave me this very very radical idea that maybe, just
maybe I might be feeling so drawn to him because
(36:18):
I have something to give him. And that was the
switch that flipped for me where I thought, Yes, this
is not about him and what he is capable of giving.
This is about me and what I am capable of giving.
(36:41):
And I know that I am capable of being kind
to this man, and by God, I am going to
do it and no one can stop me. And that's
what it ultimately came to be about. It's not about him.
(37:01):
It's about me and what I have in me and
what I feel compelled to give that didn't need to
be given, and that was not even asked for.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Yes, well, because notably when you did actually meet him
in person. You brought your husband with you, you had
your daughter with you. He was not in writing. But
he didn't extend an apology.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Right Yeah, so what he did say versus what he
didn't say, right, Like, he didn't say I'm sorry, he
didn't say I was wrong, but he did say I
believe you. He said, if I were asked to prosecute
(37:48):
this case again, I would not.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
He said that me reaching out to him was one
of the most important things that had ever happened to him,
and he said that he was in awe by it.
And I think the really interesting thing to think about
is you can come away from an experience like that
(38:18):
being deeply disappointed or being pleasantly surprised, and it's really
your choice. Like the answers that I got from him
were not always satisfying, but they were interesting and they
(38:40):
were revelatory. There was a person who I was talking
to who was just like, so frustrated by the end
of reading my books. She was like, I mean, he
gives you this, but he doesn't give you that, Like
what is he you know? What is going on here?
And I was like, honey, like there are two ways
of looking at the world. You either look at the
world like a department store or like a thrift store.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Now a department store.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
You can go in and you can get the little
black dress that you saw on sale online and in
your size whenever you want. And that's how it is.
And you can pretend that the world is like that,
but that's not really how the world is. The world
is really like a thrift shop. You go in and
you don't know what you're gonna find. And if you
have your mindset on that little black dress that you
(39:25):
saw online that's in your side to find it, you
are not.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Going to find it.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
But if you are fixated on only finding that, you
are not going to be able to find the things
that appear to you that you may be just delighted
by that you are not expecting, like a mushroom shaped lamp.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
It's you know, like, so this is like how I
don't know that.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
It's like such a silly way of like thinking about it,
but like I try to encounter the world and life
and people like you would a thrift store, and like
being open to being pleasantly surprised instead of having these
very specific expectations that will lead to disappointment. My mom
was not satisfy. She was disappointed. She was looking for
(40:11):
that black dress in her size. She wanted him to
say I was wrong and I'm sorry, and I'll do
everything in my power to make it right. And he
didn't say any of those things, and she wasn't able
to hear what he was able to say. He said
that he wanted to be a source of healing in
my life, that he didn't want me to suffer anymore
(40:35):
for what I had been through.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
And I heard that.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I could hear that in a way that my mom couldn't,
And so I came away from that experience feeling healed,
not just by what he said, but also by the
fact that I had put myself in a position in
order to hear it.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
You mentioned him being in awe. I, frankly, I think
we all are, because what I see is just masterclass
for the rest of us what it means to bridge
one of the greatest gaps that can exist between two humans.
I mean, it is a masterclass in human empathy. You know,
(41:24):
your book is called Free, and you've spent years searching
for freedom, both from behind bars and then after you
were released, And God, I hate that this is true,
but even recently, just for listeners to know, you were
found guilty of slander for statements that you made in
(41:45):
the days following Merediths murder. Police interrogated you for over
fifty hours over five days, and under extreme coercion, you
ended up implicating your boss at the time in the
murder of Meredith. And despite your appeal, despite the fact
that a European high court found Italy to be in
violation of your human rights during the interrogation, Italy Top
(42:09):
Court still upheld this conviction. In twenty twenty five. This happened.
And so I mean, like so frustrating. I'm just like,
oh my god, it's so frustrating. And so what I
want to ask aman is like, what have you learned
about freedom? What is freedom to you?
Speaker 3 (42:29):
For me, freedom means being able to see and engage
with the world with a clear mind, because if you
are engaging with the world as it should be, you
are perpetually going to be ineffective. You're going to encounter
obstacles because you're going to be thinking about what to
(42:50):
do in the terms of what you think the world
should be like, and not the world as it is.
And I think the reason why I had such an
effective approach to Minnini was because I saw clearly the
situation for what it was, and that gave me a
degree of freedom of choosing how I wanted to engage
(43:13):
with it. There's a Zen saying, I'm a Zen practitioner
that if you really really sit with the world and
with reality in the present moment, and you just sit
and look at it clearly, you'll realize that it's okay.
It's not good, it's not bad, it's it's okay. You
are okay, and being okay is a great place from
(43:39):
which to choose how you are going to be in
the world. You're not coming from a place of fear,
You're not coming from a place of anger. You are
coming from a place of being okay and choosing to
be your best self in the next moment. And that
makes me feel like, no matter what the external circumstances
(44:02):
I'm facing are, like, I know that I am free
to act the way I want to.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Despite the fact Italy's highest court upheld Amanda's slander conviction,
she won't need to return to prison because of the
four years she already spent wrongfully incarcerated To hear more
of Amanda's reflections on motherhood and the story of her
relationship with her prosecutor check out her new book, It's
called Free My Search for Meaning. Thanks so much for listening.
(45:04):
If you enjoyed this episode, we in the Slight Change
Family would so appreciate it if you could share it
with your family and friends. And you can sign up
for my free newsletter at Changewithmaya dot com. Join me
next week, when we hear from author and podcast host
Mel Robbins on her battle with control.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
I just started to say, let them. At any moment
in my life where things just felt stress with traffic,
let them the person's root in front of me, wet them.
My mom's in a bad.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Moot, let her read a bad move.
Speaker 5 (45:36):
And so I just started saying, let them, let them,
let them, And it was so profound.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
That's next week on A Slight Change of Plans. A
Slight Change of Plans is created, written and executive produced
by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Changed Family includes our
showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson, Morgan, our
producers Britney Cronin and Megan Luvin, and our sound engineer
(46:02):
Erica Huang, Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song and
Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks
to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks
to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of
Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. See you next week.
Host
Dr. Maya Shankar
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