October 4, 2025 • 50 mins
On a summer night in Italy in 2007, the brutal murder of Meredith Kercher shocked the world. Her American flatmate Amanda Knox, and her new boyfriend Raffaele, were instantly thrust into an international legal saga that spanned years.
For the first time ever, True Crime Conversations host Claire Murphy joins The Spill's Laura Brodnik for a can't-miss crossover that dissects the new Disney+ series, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox. Whether you're a true-crime devotee or an entertainment junkie, you need to hear this.
In this episode, we bring you the full forensic detail of the Amanda Knox case, including the vital piece of contamination that crumbled the prosecution's DNA evidence. We also analyse the dramatic new TV series that puts you inside Amanda’s mind, depicting the terrifying interrogation police failed to record.
Discover the unsettling truth about the unflushed poo, the "see you later" text police misinterpreted, and the psychological tricks used to coerce a false confession from an exhausted, non-Italian speaking student.
We explain why the show's creators believe that only a drama - not a documentary or a memoir - can truly clear a name that has been dragged through the mud for a decade, and clear up exactly how Monica Lewinsky got involved.
THE END BITS
Hear Laura Brodnik every day on Mamamia’s twice-daily entertainment podcast The Spill. We post the latest celeb headlines you need to know at 8am, and an in-depth (and hilarious) look at the day’s biggest celebrity stories at 3pm. Follow our feed to get in the know.
Content warning: This article contains graphic details of violence, assault and sexual assault. If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
Mamamia’s No Filter spoke exclusively to Amanda Knox - hear her own story here.
Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes.
CREDITS
Hosts: Claire Murphy and Laura Brodnik
Producers: Tahli Blackman and Monisha Iswaran
Audio Producer: Scott Stronach
Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I'm Laura Brodneck, host of The Spill, which is Mama
MIA's daily entertainment and pop culture podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And I'm Claire Murphy. I'm the host of True Crime Conversations,
which is our weekly true crime podcast speaking to the
people who know the most about these crimes. Well, i
am the host when Jemma Bath is not on maternity
leave and she will be returning never fear. But we
know just how popular true crime is, whether you listen
to it on a podcast, whether you watch it on
your streaming service of choice. But what about when crime
(00:46):
meets drama? And that is what we are talking about today.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yes, that is what we're here to discuss.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
So we are talking about the new Disney Plus series,
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
And if you're listening to this.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Through the Spill feed, we have heard all of your
comments that you want more true crime series and you
want to kind of dissect the actors and the production,
the behind the scenes facts, but you also want to
know what happened in the real life case and where
those people are now and why these stories were chosen
to be told in a dramatic fashion. So we're going
to be deep diving into that in today's episode. So Claire,
(01:20):
as our true crime expert, you're going to take us
through the Aman Dannox's case and what happened from the beginning,
because I think for a lot of people like myself,
I have such a memory of watching this unfold on
TV at the time, But there's so much more to
this case, I think, and it became a lot more
in depth than a lot of people realize.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, and if you got your information about this case
from the news media, then that may have actually twisted
the way you might see it or view it. So
we're going to get to the bottom of that as well.
But I'll step you through where this all began. Okay,
So first thing I need to warn you is that
this case spans years. Yes, so it went on for
a really long time, So bear with us. There's a
(02:00):
little bit to get through. It started off in September
two thousand and seven. That is when Meredith Kercher, who
was a British student. She was spending a year studying
abroad in Italy and she moved into a share accommodation,
which is the villa at seven Via della Pergola in Perusia.
And then later that same month, just ten days later,
(02:20):
Amanda Knox, who was an American student doing the same thing,
spending a year in Italy, she moved into the same address.
So there is four young girls living in this small
apartment or small villa. There are some boys living in
the flat downstairs, so they all share this villa together.
On October twenty five, Amanda meets a young Italian boy
called Rafaeli. Now they met at a concert. They are
(02:43):
immediately in love. They do that honeymoon period where they
spend literally every minute of every day together. She then
starts staying at his house essentially every night. She has
a job, so she goes and works at a bar,
local bar, and she is studying as well, so she's
doing that too. But essentially her and Rafaeli now become inseparable.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yes, And in the show it was depicted they had
only been together about week before the events of Meredith's
murder took place. And I saw a lot of feedback
from the show of people thinking that that was added
into the story for extra dramatic effect or to make
their relationship look more like a whirlwind, but they actually
isn't that correct. They only were together really for one
week before their whole world blot with his accusation.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Absolutely true, So they literally spent a week together out
in the world as a new couple before they were
thrown into all of this drama. So come November one,
so sometime after eight thirty pm, Meredith Kercher was murdered
in the villa she shares with her flatmates. Amanda and
Raphaeli are at Rafaelei's apartment and the two of them
(03:47):
both switch their phone off that night around the same
time that Meredith is murdered. Now, Amanda explains that she
had been messaging with her boss, who was maybe going
to go into work that night, and he messaged her
to say that she didn't have to come in, and
she was like, great, this means I get to spend
more time with my brand new, very handsome young man
boyfriend in his apartment. And so they watched a movie
(04:11):
and they ate some food and they smoked a joint together.
And Raphaeli had also turned his phone off because he
didn't want to speak to his dad. He spoke to
his dad every night on the phone, He's like, no,
I want the two of us to spend uninterrupted time together.
This is very important because police see that as in
this day and age, where technology is used so frequently
(04:32):
to track us, to find out where we are, to
marry up locations to potential crimes, that if you turn
your phone off it almost looks like an admission of guilt, yes,
that you have done something wrong, so that is part
of the case against them. She also sends a message
to her boss before turning her phone off that says thanks,
I'll see you later. That is interpreted by police very
(04:55):
differently had they not been Italian, if English had been
their first language, we say that all the time, see
you later, it's part of our vernacular, but in Italy
it's taken more lick.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
As if they had a plan to see each other later.
And when we're watching the series, you see Amanda trying
to explain to the police that it's just another form
of saying goodbye, and how quickly that leads to her
being implicated because again they're thinking that she's making a
plan to meet up with him and is he involved
or did she leave the apartment.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
And the fact that her boss is a certain nationality
also plays into this. We'll get to that in a second.
So it's the next morning. Amanda's woken up the night
before there'd been a spill or leaking something at Raphaeli's
how she wants to go home, She needs to get
a mop because he doesn't own one, typical man, and
then she also wants to have a shower and just
get changed. And she will later on explain why she
(05:45):
did that to Raphaeli in a very beautiful, lovely scene
where she'd like, I just wanted to look pretty for
you and wear a dress. But so she goes home
and the front door is open, which is not unusual
because the front door that they had of this villa
was a little bit dodgy. You had to physically keylock
it for it to stay shut, and if you didn't
do that, the wind would sometimes just blow it open.
(06:06):
So Amanda's thinking, one of my flatmates is just run
down the street to grab something, didn't think to key
lock the door. It's blown open by itself. Yes, So
she steps inside. She walks through to her own room,
She goes to have a shower. She steps out onto
the bath mat and realizes there's some blood on the
bath mat. She also notices a little bit of it
on the sink area too. Now, for anyone who's lived
(06:30):
in a sharehouse full of women, we know the blood
sometimes is a part of our day to day life. Yes,
was this menstrual blood? Did someone cut themselves shaving? It's
in the bathroom.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
There's so many possibilities that it could be so many
people using that bathroom.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Exactly right, So she goes, ooh, that's kind of gross,
but doesn't think that automatically jumped to someone's been murdered
in the house. She does notice, though, that someone has
gone to the toilet, they have done a pooh, and
they haven't flushed it, and that then is the first
time she fully realizes that something's not right. Yes, which
(07:04):
is interesting because if you live in a house full
of women, sometimes women can be pretty gross, especial when
it comes to mistrum blood. But there are certain things
that she knows her flatmates just would not do, and
that is leave an unflushed poo in the toilet. So
she leaves, and she asks Rafaeli to come back to
the house, and she's like, I don't understand what's happened.
(07:27):
She goes back inside realizes that one of her other
flatmates rooms has been broken into, so the window is
broken and there's glass on the ground. She's unsure if
she's been robbed because it's her flatmate's room, so she's
not sure if anything is missing, but she thinks someone
has maybe been in the house. And then when she
goes back past the bathroom, it looks like the pooh
has been flushed. She doesn't go in and have a
(07:48):
look at it, but it looks like it's been flushed,
so she goes, Oh my god, that person must have
been in the house while I was in the house.
So she starts to really freak out. Raphaeli turns up
and they have a look and they realize that Meredith,
one of her flat maids. Her door is locked. They
knock on it, they call her name, she doesn't answer.
They think she's not there, but they're not sure what's
going on. They call police, but two officers do turn up,
(08:09):
but they're not the police. They've actually called yes and
this is true, Two of the fraud investigation police turn
up because they have found two mobile phones thrown into
someone's back garden. Now they believe that the phones belong
to one of the other flatmates, not Meredith, but that
is due to a SIM card being shared amongst the girls.
(08:30):
They actually belong to Meredith, and so they've been taken
from her and thrown over the back fence of someone's property.
So these fraud cops turn up and they start to
ask them about the phones, and they're like, hang on,
we think someone's broken into our house. And so these
guys automatically become in charge of this crime scene.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
They end up.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Calling in investigators because when the other flatmates come home
and they will realize that Meredith's door is still locked,
one of these guys kicks the door open and finds
a body. Now, Meredith has been raped, She's had her
throat cut. There is blood everywhere.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
She's covered by.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Her bedding, so you can see in the crime scene
photos that one of her feet is sticking out and
you can see just the top of her head, but
there is a lot of blood. And so that is
when the homicide team is brought in and they start
to investigate. Now, this is where we have to understand
watching the Twister Tail of Amanda Knox. This is told
(09:33):
from Amanda's perspective. Yes, and not from the police's perspective.
The difference in the way the Italian justice system works
is very different to say, the American or the Australian
justice system. So the person who will be prosecuting you
in court is the same person who investigates the crime.
So Manini, who is a real man, is a real character,
(09:53):
so he's a real person, the character in the show.
So he comes on board as like the lead investigator,
but he's also going to be prosecuting this in court.
There is a detective who is also a real person,
a woman who takes an immediate dislike to Amanda. She's
one of the first to question her, and it's very
obvious that she distrusts Amanda's reaction to the crime. And
(10:18):
we can see this. It has been documented. Amanda does
stand outside with everybody else when the investigative team comes in,
and she's with Raphaeli, and you've got to remember they've
been together for days, they're still in the honeymoon period.
He's comforting her, she's like smiling and laughing with him,
and like they're cuddling and kissing a little bit, and
it all seems a little bit not right to the detectives.
(10:40):
They're like, if my flatmate, who I supposedly am quite
close to, even though we've only lived together for a
little while, if we are seeing it right, she's not
phased by her roommate being brutally murdered in her home.
So that is when things start to shift back to
the police station. They're all brought in for questioning. Meredith's friends,
(11:02):
the other roommates, Amanda and Raphaeli, are questioned, and it
seems like at the beginning they're already suspecting her. They
do ask her questions about her whereabouts, and they try
and find alibis. There is a lot because she's there
all day, and then it's noted that she's sitting in
Raphaeli's lap in the waiting room in the police station,
(11:24):
and again detectives are looking at this like this is
not the behavior of somebody whose friend has just been murdered.
Meredith's British friends are there and they too are looking
at this, thinking why is she acting this way when
Meredith has just been brutally slain in their home that
they share together. So there's a lot of questions being
asked about why a mandal did not act a certain
(11:44):
way in the aftermath of Meredith's death, and so then
the questioning amps up a little bit from detectives, and
then they allow her to go home. But it's already
the next day, almost and she's exhausted, and they tell her,
you need to be back here within a few hours.
So she goes home, has a shower, comes back again,
doesn't go home as a crime scene. She goes to
Rafaeli's as a shower comes back. She's exhausted, she has
(12:06):
had very little sleep, she doesn't really know what's going on,
and she's interrogated by police again and again and again.
And this is the interesting part of this whole thing
is that, as I said, this drama series is told
from Amanda's perspective. What is also true is that police
did not record this interrogation. Yes, we will never know
(12:29):
exactly what happened in that room. There is no evidence
to fall back on, there is no video. Amanda at
that time did not speak great Italian. She's hearing all
of this through an interpreter at a time where she's tired,
doesn't know what's going on. So her interpretation of it
is that they essentially coerced her into an admission of guilt.
(12:50):
So this is a little bit of what the interrogation
sounds like from Amanda's perspective in the Twist Tail of Amanda.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Knox, Remember, it's interesting listening to that and knowing how
(13:52):
much of a hand Amanda Knox had in not just
the creation of the show and the behind the scenes
and productions she's an executive producer, but she also gave
so much information to the writers and almost guided them
step by step of how she.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Wanted to eat to play out and how it came
from her memory. And then she even helped write some
of the episodes. And it's like they're looking back on
this very specific moment of media attention, like those moments
where she and Rafaeli are outside the house and they're hugging,
and that's the moment we're in the series, and in
real life we know the police kind of turned against them,
and both of them have looked back on that time,
(14:26):
and I think you can see it come through the
series because we're hearing it from Amanda's point of view,
is that she was quite shell shocked, and so she
was being very physical towards him because that's how she
deals with trauma. And he was almost clocking how it
looked to people around them. But he later on said
in his own memoir that he wrote about the situation.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
That he thought it was too cold to be.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Pushing her away in that moment where she was wanting
to be very affectionate, wanting to sit in his lap.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
It was like a comfort thing.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
And even scenes where you see her doing like leading integration,
like she does the splits in the waiting room and
all that sort of stuff, that all really happened, but
it's all just like a fear response from her as
what she's saying. And as we get led into the
interior gate. It's really interesting because as you're saying, there's
no film, there's no video of that moment. Everyone who's
in that room has a different story. But the camera
(15:14):
work and the way that they shape it to the
audience is almost like you're supposed to see it so
directly through Amanda's eyes, that like the camera frame keeps
getting smaller, the noises keep getting louder, they're getting repetitive.
It's all these kind of sensory tricks that exactly all
these sensory tricks that are laid over that are meant
to almost like make you feel as a viewer that
you're being interrogated to. The idea is like your hard
(15:35):
is supposed to start beating fast, you're supposed to start
getting in like a final flight situation. So when she
yells out Patrick's name at the end, it's almost like
this release of like wanting to know the escape of
exactly exactly because she's given them what they want in
that moment. So it's a really interesting twist of putting
you in Amanda's shoes. And I guess maybe that explains
(15:57):
what happened next if you're looking at the real crime.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, so you heard there. She says it was Patrick,
and Patrick is her boss at the bar, Patrick Mumba,
who is an African man who has immigrated to Italy
and he's opened this bar. Police had found a hair
in Meredith Kirch's bedroom which matched an African man. There
was a young black man living in the apartment downstairs
(16:22):
and he was terrified to hear that there was a
hair that potentially linked to him. But then they found
out that the person that Amanda had texted I'll see
you later, which they took literally, that man was also
of African origin. And so for them, puzzle pieces started
to click into place. Amanda had obviously organized to meet
(16:42):
this man at some stage that night, and that man
has hair that matches the one that's on the scene,
so it all makes sense to them. So she tells
them that Patrick did it, and all of a sudden,
the interrogation stops. And as we know now, and what
you do learn about in the drama series and the
documentary too that Amanda Knox has made about this, is
that is a very well known interrogation technique. It is
(17:03):
one that police had been using for a very long time,
and we've seen cases be overturned like the Central Park
five for example, the same interrogation technique was used on
them and they falsely confess to a murder that they
did not commit. And so we've seen it happen before
where if you just layer on the pressure and you
get people to think that maybe then remembering something wrong,
(17:25):
and then you plan to see that potentially it happened
this way, like maybe you did leave the apartment that night,
maybe you did meet with Patrick, maybe you did go
back to your apartment, and then they start to make
you believe, under stress and duress that you are wrong
and they are right, and so to stop it, all
you can do is admit. And so that is what
we're seeing play out from Amanda's perspective. Now, the detectives
(17:48):
they say that it did not play out like that,
that that interrogation did not happen like that. Also, Amanda
claimed she was hit in the head a couple of
times during it, which they say did not happen. And
they say that at no stage did they plant to
seed that it was Patrick like that came from her.
They said that they did not do that. So we
can't know what the truth is in amongst all of that.
(18:09):
So moving on, It's now November nineteen, so it's eighteen
days since Meredith's murder, and police announced that there is
actually a new suspect. They've arrested Patrick, Amanda, and Raphaeli
at this stage, and they realized that a man who
had been arrested a few days before Merediths murder for
breaking into a kindergarten, essentially that he is actually the
(18:32):
suspect linked to Merediths murder. His name is Rudy Gadet.
He is also an African immigrant into Italy and he
had a rap sheet robberies, various crimes against women like
so he really fit them. So when they figured out
that Rudy was their guy, they had to let Patrick
go because his alibis stood.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Up and was checked.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And they did manage to find Rudy Gadet at a
train station and they arrest him. Now Amanda and RAPHAELI
at this stage think okay, they've finally found the murderer.
They will let us go. No, that is not what happened.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
In fact, police ramp up their involvement and they create
a narrative that there was some kind of sexual nature
to the crime. Obviously, Meredith was raped, so that was
already where they were being led. But they believed that
it was more than just a man breaking in and
(19:27):
raping Meredith. That Amanda and Rafaeley were playing some kind
of game and they wanted to involve Meredith and she
didn't want to and that's why she was killed. They
also had been collecting DNA from the scene, and this
is what will bring them unstuck. Later on down the
track they film the entire thing. They find DNA of
(19:48):
merediths on a knife that has both Amanda and Rafaele's
DNA on it. Also it was it Rafaele's apartment. They
also find some of Rafaele's DNA on a brass strap
that looks to have been broken off in some kind
of scuffle, but as well later find out, those two
were then eventually thrown out, So Rudy Gudet asks for
a separate trial, and he's fast tracked so with before
(20:12):
Amanda and Rafaelli even make it to court. He is
found guilty, sent to jail, and sentenced, so like he's
over and done with. So then later Amanda and Rafaeli
go to trial, and at this stage is when the
media really starts to sink its teeth into this story.
Back in the day it was MySpace, they'd trolled through
Amanda's MySpace and found every picture that made her look
(20:33):
even vaguely bad, and they start referring to her by
a nickname Foxy Noxy, which sounds terrible but was actually
a nickname given to her when she was playing soccer
as a child, and they made her into this kind
of vixen character who obviously was doing this for some
kind of sexual gratification and then turned on Meredith in
the moment. So if we fast forward now, too. December four,
(20:54):
two thousand and nine, the jury finds a Manda in
Rafaeli guilty, which comes as a real shock to everybody
because the way that that case was handled, the prosecutors
didn't hand over a lot of the evidence until very late.
They didn't have a chance to refute a lot of it.
They were really kind of flying by the seat of
their pants a lot of these junctures of the trial,
(21:16):
and they found guilty and they're sent off to prison,
and the two of them are so shell shocked they
don't really know what to do. Amanda claims, then that's
when she really started to research her own investigation. And
by this stage she's becoming more fluent in Italian, so
she can redocumentation better and she can understand the process
(21:38):
is a bit better. But the media has really sunk
its teeth into the point where every little thing is
being leaked of hers to the press. So, for example,
and this is true in the drama, when she was
admitted into prison, they took a blood test and they
falsely found her positive for HIV and she was told basically,
that's it, you have HIV. And you know, in the
(21:58):
early two thousands, we didn't treat it as well as
what we do in twenty twenty five. It was a
terrifying diagnosis then, but she was kind of just told, oh, yep,
that's it, and then to write a list of men
that she potentially had sexual contact with so that they
can be contacted. That list was then stolen from her
cell and given to the media to paint another picture
of just how immoral that this young American girl was. Eventually,
(22:22):
there is an appeal, so twenty eleven they go back
to court on appeal. This is when the DNA evidence
becomes crucial. So they watch the video of how the
DNA collection process was handled, and you can see in
the investigation's own video evidence that they handled it incorrectly. So,
(22:43):
just as an example, that brass strap that we spoke
about before, in the first video evidence, we can see
it's underneath Meredith's pillow, and then by the next time
that they collect that evidence, it's on the floor under
the corner of a rug.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
So it's been contaminated.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
In the drama series, and there's a question of like
how much is it being contaminated, and the person says,
like it doesn't actually matter because the fact that it's
being moved and handled already made exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Exactly right, and you can see. And in the original
trial they looked at that brashtup that obviously it had
been forcefully pulled apart and like the prongs.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Were pulled apart.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
But really what had happened is it's obviously been stood
on while it's on the floor, and you can see
that in the evidence between when you first see it
and when you second see it. And then as far
as the DNA on the knife is concerned, there was
so little trace evidence that they had to override the
DNA testing machine in order for it to register. And
they were questioned in court about that, and they said,
(23:38):
if you didn't override that machine, wouldn't have found trace
DNA of all three of them, and they said, probably
not of Meridith's DNA. So and also they found that
the knife had been transported in a box that had
had other things in it, so it was it was
poorly handled.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
So they were acquitted.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
After that, Amanda goes home to the US, Rafaeli attempts
to get on with his life. Amanda and Raphaeley again
brought to trial in Italy. They decided to secute them
they are found guilty. The next time around, Amanda does
not return to Italy from the US. Raphaeli does eventually
return to Italy to try and defend himself, and then
(24:16):
there is another appeal on that and they do then
equit them and that's it. Case closed. So this goes
on for quite a few years. But as we can see,
there is a lot of truth in the drama the
way that it's depicted. But also we can never know
what exactly happened in some of these situations because it
is not documented.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yes, so it's very much from her point of view
and her experience and her take on it. So in
that case, it's not meant to be I don't think
watched as a factual program. It's more there to just
see it through her eyes. And for a lot of people,
they're coming to this story for nearly the first time
through this drama.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, and if you were, like I said, understanding it
from just media reports, the way that she was portrayed
was interesting, that she had become this kind of demon girl,
this American demon sexual deviant that they really pay her as,
and it was widely believed in the press that she
was some kind of awful murderer who was in it
(25:12):
for sexual pleasure.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yes, that she was like a sex craze, meaning and
to be honest, like I do understand. I mean I
don't understand of obviously the horrific side of this, of
like taking a murder investigation and demonizing someone who had
that stage hadn't been found guilty and was later acquitted.
But I do understand because it's like a perfect storm
of everything that the media in some parts thrives on,
but also what consumers want, like nothing sells better and
(25:36):
nothing gets better numbers or more attention than a beautiful
young woman, especially a beautiful young white woman at the
center of some sort of very intense and gruesome crime.
It's like all of these different facets of society coming together.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
And who doesn't respond in the moment like we would
expect someone to. And she does kind of explain that
she has a bit of a weird personality and she
doesn't always act in a way that people understand, and
as we know now we understand not everyone reacts the same.
So it is really interesting. But also to where I
read an article by an Italian journalist who was, like
everyone said, the Italian media was out to get her
(26:10):
and demonize her, and that is partly true, but it
was more the American press and others who picked up
on that and ran with it.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Oh absolutely, And we know from looking back at the
coverage that so many American news outlets sent whole news teams,
camera people, reporters over there who were there for months
at a time, camped in front of the crime scene,
camped outside of the prison, the courthouse, following Amanda's family
around and people involved in the story. And a lot
of the story came from just images that they would
(26:39):
capture of her going in and out of different court proceedings,
and not just what was in the court room at
the time. And if you look at just the pictures
and the videos at the time, I mean, I know,
we're looking through it through a lens of like the
story being fed at the time, but she does look
very guilty if you look at just the media coverage,
she does look like a vixen who orchestrated to kill
someone because of the pictures they've chose to run, because
(27:00):
of the videos they showed, and because she wasn't acting
like a perfect victim of how you would expect someone
that situation to react.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, and it is really interesting to watch this drama
understanding the true crime behind it because a lot of
it is factual, like a lot of it is, and
their recreation of the crime scene. The court proceedings weren't
recorded either, so we don't know exactly. They were behind
closed doors, so we don't know exactly what happened there,
But there were photographers in the courtroom that captured these
moments too, and they really recreated some of that incredibly well,
(27:31):
to the point where when I was looking at some photos,
I had to stop myself and go, hang on, is
that the real Amanda Knox or is that the actress
playing Amanda Knox? Because they did a really faithful recreation
of her outfits, the apartment, inside the apartment, which was
really quite incredible. I scrolled through the crime scene photos
myself and how to look at what it really looked like,
and it really does. They've done a very faithful job
(27:53):
at recreating it.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
And that's part of the reason getting into why this
TV show exists, is that they wanted to be really
faithful to the story. And obviously there's a lot of
back and forth over whether the TV show.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Should exist or not.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Like even people who don't have any thoughts on whether
or not she's guilty or what happened have a bit
of an issue of one a story like this being
dredged up, but too if it was even necessary to
put it into like the entertainment drama space. Because since
Amanda Knox was acquitted that final time, she's written two
different memoirs, she's done a podcast, there's so many documentaries,
(28:27):
some that she's had a hand and some that she hasn't.
She's done well over one hundred interviews at this stage,
just because she's done so many.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Here at Muma Mia, which will play a little in
a minute.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yes, exactly, like she has really told her story. So
a lot of people were thinking, like why go back
for like another sip from the well to this story.
So there's a lot of questions and commentary around whether
or not this TV show should have been made and
should it exist. I think we both have strong feelings
on that. There's a lot of strong feelings from the public,
which is what we're going to get into next. So
(28:59):
you've say the Amanda Knox case so closely now you've
watched the full drama series. I know you've seen all
of the commentary from people who have watched it. The
family is involved. What's your thought on whether or not
this TV show should exist?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I'm so conflicted.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah, me too. Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, even everything we've consumed, usually at this stage of
the game, I would have a very clear view of
whether or not something like this should have been made.
But like everything else with this story, it's like very complex.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
It is, And I think the biggest thing is that
this will never be Meredith Kirtch's story. Yes, and that
is what is touched on a little bit in the
Twister Tale of Amanda Knox, that it should be about
a beautiful young woman whose life was cut tragically. Sure,
and it should be about the man who did that
to her and the fact that he is spending his
(29:46):
life behind bars, although I believe he's been released now.
So why is it never about Meredith? Why is it
always about Amanda? And she acknowledges that, and she acknowledges
that Meredith is now essentially her story. But for the
family of Meredith, like I can fully understand why they
have responded the way they have, Like, why are we
doing this again? Why do we keep talking about this story,
(30:07):
like this is Amanda's story, but also if you put
yourself in Amanda shoes and someone falsely accused me of murder,
sent me to prison and really dragged my name through
the mud for years and years and years, a legacy
that she still lives with to this day. There are
still legions of people who do not believe her. They
believe that she is guilty, absolutely, and they will tell her.
(30:30):
And there is a part in the series where she
starts to like understand the new technology that she's come
back into the world to see, and the messages she
starts to get are pretty intense, and you know, there
are death threats and you know, telling her to take
her own life, and like that's an intense thing to
deal with all the time. So would I, in Amanda
(30:51):
Shoes want to keep telling my story so that people
understand me better and who understand the situation better. I
guess I get it from her perspective and wanting to
set the record straight over and over and over when
people still don't believe you, Like I really understand that.
But I just I feel for Meredith's family whose story
just gets overlooked, misunderstood, And there are still people even
(31:16):
in Meredith's family, who aren't sure what they believe either. Yes,
So to see Amanda also profiting from this, like, that's
hard for them to see and hard for them to take.
So I'm still really conflicted. I get it, but I
don't want to see Meredith again become the victim.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, And that's the difficult thing of watching it is
that Meredith Kirch's family were contacted in the lead up
to the show, like before opened production, and they told
production they wanted nothing to do with it, which was
expected so they pushed on a head without it, but
it was more so when the show was released and
the fact that it's been coming out weekly and even
the lead up to that with Amanda, like releasing a
podcast and doing a lot of press around that and
(31:54):
seeing all those headlines come up again, and the response
from the family was always, please don't do this, Please
don't drag this up again. Please don't drag her name
in front of the world again. And it's something that
Amanda Knox does talk about quite a bit, and something
I always want to watching interviews with her find interesting
is that she often say to the interviewer, you know
my name and you know Merita's name, but do you
know the name of the man who actually committed the crime.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
And a lot of the time people don't.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Know his name, and they don't know his story or
his face or anything because he's not a young woman.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
And that's not an.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Exciting part of the case. But in terms of why
they made it, Amanda Knox has always said that it's
because she gave birth to a daughter and then suddenly
she realized that her daughter would be growing up in
a world where so many people still thought she was
guilty of murder, and.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
She's inheriting a legacy exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
And it's almost like reading between the lines of listening
to a man to speak about this is that it's
almost like her last ditch effort to clear her name
through drama, because she knows how much, especially at this
point in time, right now, how much the world responds
to drama in a way that we sometimes don't respond
to an interviewer and an article. So she's written the memoirs,
she's done press to us so many times over the years,
(32:59):
she's done the podcast, so many people have released information
about it, and yet she only saw a drama as
they to clear her name essentially, and maybe it's because
she could have complete control over the narrative that in
a way you can't have with even a memoir or something,
because a memoir you're just reading the same voice all
the way through. With the TV show, you're seeing all
of these actors relive those moments, and like we're saying,
(33:22):
it was a very sensory heavy show, so you almost
feel like you've gone through it with her. And so
that idea was like people would watch the show and
it's so through her eyes that you would come out
of it believing her. And the subtext I think of
all her interviews is that she thought that was worth
bringing it up again as like one last attempt to
clear her name.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, and we are seeing this real moment for these
stories being told in this manner. So like the Menendez brothers,
for example, I had reported on their story as a
journalist many times over the years as they've kind of
attempted to be free, and I had a very preformed
opinion of whether I thought what they did was done
(34:04):
purely for greed, which is what they'd been positioned as
in the media and by the prosecution. And then when
you see their stories dramatized and you understand a little
bit more about what was going on behind closed doors,
and you understand that you know, maybe as children they
were abused, and so you know, you understand the crime
a little bit better. And now there are calls for
(34:26):
their freedom, even though they are not free as of
us recording this podcast. But I can understand why Amanda
might want to also be a part of this moment
where people are reclaiming their own narrative, especially when it's
through a drama that can take you to the place
and the time and can put you in the situation
and like if I was twenty in a foreign country
(34:46):
where I don't speak the language, was accused of a terrible,
terrible crime and have no family support and not understand
what's happening to me and finding myself in jail, not
even understanding what I've signed. Because the truth of the
matter is she signed a document and she didn't even
fully understand what it was she was signing, And so
(35:08):
to put myself in that position like that would be terrifying. Yeah,
and I don't think you get that, You're right when
you listen to her speak on a podcast or you
read her memoir it doesn't put you in the time
and place, and it doesn't make you experience that alongside her.
And I think it's actually kind of smart because I
did legitimately change my view on this case after watching.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah Yeah to an extent, and again, it just nothing
kind of pulls you in like a drama. It's like
we saw this year with Apple side of vinegram Bell Gibson,
Like a lot of people knew that story, they knew
that she had lied about having cancer, but there was
this renewed kind of rally behind the victims and the
journalists involved in everything worldwide in a way that hadn't
happened even when we saw Bell Gibson giving these interviews.
And I think with the drama too, it's so many
(35:49):
elements of being able to control it. But also like
the choice of actress, like with Grace van Patten, who
gives this very kind of vulnerable performance, and she's acting
in a way that we didn't at least in the
clips we saw, and this was like a very strategic
thing from the production team from her because she's to
be playing a woman who's been thrust into this and
so we don't see her acting for the cameras in
(36:11):
the way that people think Amanda Knox did, and a
lot of effort went into casting the exact right person
for that role, which you can imagine because they didn't
want to cast an actress who might be almost painted
with the same brush that Amanda Knox is, like, is
she seen a sexualized actress? What of the roles has
she played? Will she come across as like not sympathetic
and vulnerable enough? And so there was this real call
(36:33):
to find a very vulnerable looking actress, which I think
Grace Van Patten, who most people would know from the
TV show Tell Me Lies, is kind of almost known
for being that type of character actress where she often
plays the more subdued, kind of almost victim character, and
it was meant to be Margaret Kawley. Originally she was
attached and they moved her out and put her into
this role. But I think the other interesting thing is
(36:53):
who else is involved behind the scenes of this production,
which is one of Kolowinski, which was a real surprise.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
When I saw them sitting on an American TV show
on the couch next to each other, I'm like, oh,
that's an interesting lineup of guests and didn't realize they
were talking about the exact sect, the.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Very project they've been working on. So they met in
twenty seventeen. They were both speaking at an event, and
Amanda said that she was like getting quite overcome and
quite stressed about publicly speaking, but also just everything about
reliving her story over and over again. And she says
she went to the green room and she was stressing out,
and Monica Lewinsky came in and they very instantly bonded,
shared stories. Monica Lewinsky was giving her tips on how
(37:30):
to do this next part of being in the public eye.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
I've spent the majority of my adult life feeling like
no one cared what I had to say, and anything
I did say was always twisted against me. And then
I find myself invited to go give a talk for
the first time ever, and I'm utterly terrified. I also
learned that someone else is going to be speaking at
this event, and it happens to be the one and
(37:55):
only Monica Lewinsky, whose Vanity Fair articles and whose TED
talks have given me hope that there might be a
path forward in my life. And so I asked the organizer.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
If I could, please, please please meet her.
Speaker 6 (38:11):
I think Amanda was the highlight of that event that day, and.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
People were so.
Speaker 6 (38:19):
I think they were just so impressed by you, which
I was when we first met, and I had so
much compassion for you, and it really was kind of
the beginning of us knowing each other.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Montical Luwinski, for anyone who doesn't know, in the late
nineteen nineties, was working in the White House and said
that she had had an affair with then President Bill
Clinton and was absolutely, there's no other way to put it,
such shamed and painted to be a liar and all
of these things.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
She seduced the president, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
And became not just a huge villain and this hatred
of the world, but also just became a mockery and
just basically the entire world turned against her. And you
talk about people being canceled, but they don't really get canceled,
but she was really canceled.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Thet jokes for like decades after that occurred, and she
has been the epitome of reclaiming the narrative exactly. And
that's where social media has actually been the most amazing
thing for some people, because she took to then Twitter,
which is now ex and we finally got to know
who Monica Lewinsky actually is and is not just this
(39:27):
vixen intern who happened to, you know, seduce the most
powerful man in the world.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Yes, because it did come out that she was telling
the truth.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Yes, yes, yeah, And she also has had a hand
in documentaries about that situation where she has been actually
asked about those experiences and has told them exactly what happened.
And so she's been able to really turn around being
the butt of every late night post joke for a
long time. And she talks about her mum sitting next
(39:54):
to her bed and like begging her not to take
her own life because of just how bad it got
for her in the late nineties and early two thousands,
and so she is now thriving because she's been able
to tell her story and be believed. So that's it
makes sense now that the two of them are working.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Together exactly, and that's why Monica wanted to be involved
in the Amanda Knox. In the televised version of her story,
she said, I can't relate to being falsely accused of
a crime like that because of her situations. A different
situation was more of a situation of public shaming, and
she's like, and I can't relate to being falsely in prison,
but I do know what it's like to have the
world turn against you and have your story not be
(40:31):
your own. And I think even though she had hard
evidence to show that what she said about the president
and everything that happened to her afterwards was true, a
lot of people still saw her, as you're saying, in
a different light. So when they did them, one of
Kolounsky TV series Johan vanie Feldstein played her, It's again
that whole thing of drama reshaping a narrative in the
way that factual information can't, was that brought a whole
(40:54):
new audience over to her site. So I think that's
why she was so instrumental on this Amanda NOx series
of being an executive producer and being able to say, like,
tell this part of the story, or don't tell this part,
or even like we don't know the extent of it.
But I think she would even be coaching her through
the press around it and everything to sort of shape
it as like the perfect kind of reclaiming of her story.
Because in the series, Amanda does become this strong hero,
(41:17):
like she always becomes like a young adult, like a
cat and has Everdeen or something. Towards the end and off,
you felt that it was done in a very careful
way for her to first be a victim and then
they kind of made her into this hero, and like
she's not just clearing her own name, but she's standing
up against the systems.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Becoming an advocate for you.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
And she's walking into the courtroom and saying, like, I
speak the language, I do this, I've done the work.
And then we see her coming back into the prison
and everyone applauding for her and cheering for her and
her being seen as this savior.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Okay, I hold that thought, Laura Brodnick, because I think
what really shook me a little bit watching this is
that break from reality into fantasy that happens quite regularly
throughout the entire series. So I want to get your
take on exactly why that is and what is happening next. So,
as we mentioned just before the break, then if you're
(42:06):
watching this series, you would have noticed that sometimes it's
Amanda telling her story and she does a little bit
of that via narration, which I know some people despise.
I actually quite like it. But then it'll cut to
really fanciful scenes. In one she's a child and her
teddy bears are applauding her for performing a little at
home dance, and often it's like there's one in a
(42:28):
library where she's like floating around on the ladder that
goes up and rolls around, Like it's this weird pull
from reality into fantasy.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
What is that about.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, it's interesting to bring up because that is the
part of the show that a lot of critics and
viewers had the most issue with, because a lot of
what people gave the show a pass for is the
fact that they said Amanda was trying to tell her
story and also on a Meredith story, and we see
a bit of a montage of Meredith at the end
as a sort of like just remember she's at the
center of this. But a lot of people feel that
(43:00):
that feels very disingenuous when they also added these fantasy
elements to it, but it was very specific choice because
Amanda Knox and the team said that they wanted to
add all these facets of magical realism and magical realism
if you're not across the whole fantasy kind of world,
like we have high fantasy, which is a whole world
being recreated with its whole different ways of being.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
In its own rules.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
And then you have more of like fantasy, which is
very kind of old school, like a whole world that's
touched by magic. And then you have magical realism, which
is a story that takes place in our world as
it is now and there's one tiny string of magic
and that's what we kind of see from Amanda's point
of view, and they wanted to do that. It's interesting
because at the top of the series you almost feel
like you're watching like a bit of an Italian kind
(43:43):
of romantic drama, and that's very deliberate from them, because
they wanted to show that it's all about putting you
in Amanda's mind and in her mind. At the start
of the show, when we meet her, she is a
young woman in Italy having adventure and having a new
romance and how intoxicating that is, and they wanted to
show that as the story went long, those moments where
you see the Teddy Bears applauding her or her floating
(44:05):
one is that there trying to make a little omage
to some movies like an Emily or a pulp fiction.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
And RAFAELI watched The Night of Merits Man.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Which apparently is the movie they watched that night, and
there's a kind of a few fanciful scenes in that movie,
but they took it the next step higher. And this
is where I think maybe I take issue with some critics,
is like, you can't have a story that is about
telling this huge truth that's based on a rape and
murder and frame yourself as emily like. They're two very
different methods of story's telling clashed.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
It's jarring, is jarring, and it's it's hard, especially when
you're looking at it from a true crime perspective, because
like you are, as you said earlier, pulled into this
world which is really intense, and it feels like you're
being interrogated or you're in prison with her, and you're
so like you lose all hope at some stages, and
then you know it's all like butterflies and fairies and
(44:56):
it feels like, oh my god, where is my brain now?
Supposed to take.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
That, Yeah, and I would have probably maybe liked it
more as a storytelling device if maybe you can see
her from the beginning to the end and as she's
in prison for so many years if you maybe saw
her start to lose her grip on reality as the
show goes along and she starts.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Having So she's some sort of allusion.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, maybe something, because like you do, hear of people
in these situations that things like that happen, that their
mental state becomes so intensified that they do start hallucinating
or recreating stories.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
But the way it's threaded through.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
It's to show that she's almost an otherworldly being, and
they're trying to show that she has this very fancible mind.
She's not like other people, which is why she didn't
react in a certain way. So it all comes that
full circle of trying to show her innocence. But I
think it comes across as a little messy and a
little self indulgent. And self indulgent is what a lot
of people have labeled the series.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
And you really can't be self indulgent when you're trying
to tell your story in the midst of the murder
of someone who you called a friend. Like that is hard.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, it's almost The thing is like they did what
they set out to do, which I find the interesting
thing too, Like I find it difficult to sit down
and watch a series like this and say, but you
should have told this or you should have told that,
Like it's the Amanda Knock story is kind of what
it's meant to be. What I think we need is
we need someone to go and make more of a
Meredith story, which, to be honest, I don't think i've
(46:14):
seen anything. I know a lot about her life, but
I don't think there's anything that's attributed completely to her
where we would see a dramatization of like her childhood,
her life.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
And even in Les, we don't even see a dramatization
of her murder. We only see Amanda turn up after
the fact.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, and I guess like the thinking from the writer's
team is that they didn't want to They obviously have
to use her name in her story because it's so
wrapped up in Amanda, but they didn't want it to
be overly glory and see that as kind of like
a voyeurism into her murder, which is so much of
true crime can be if done the wrong way, it
can be.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
But also, like when we're talking about the rape and
murder of a young woman, it feels like that should
be given a bit more gravitas than it has, Like
it wasn't we weren't given a moment to mourn Meredith, yes,
at all during this whole thing. And maybe that's the point,
because Amanda also wasn't given an opportunity to mourn her friend,
Like maybe that's the reason for that. But myself was,
(47:06):
you know, the voyeur looking in on this. I felt
like Meredith was this kind of other worldly character who
you never really get to know.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, she's like a faithless victim almost in a story
that is about the end of her life, but also
her life and her and I know thistimes like in
the they do like cut to looking at her family
members and cut to looking at her friends, and so
get you get a little bit of her life through
their reaction, but not a lot. And I guess it's
also at the top of the show because it's told
through Amanda's perspective and that it was dramatized. It very
(47:36):
much shows her and Meredith's becoming friends and this closeness
between them, which if you listen to any of Meredith's
friends or family, they say that they weren't close friends,
they didn't get along, that Meredith felt very uneasy about her,
and something about that I find almost more troubling, because
not showing the murder and the impact of the rape
(47:57):
is definitely not the best choice. But also rewriting this
woman to have this friendship she didn't have to make
the character of Amanda look more sympathetic is also a
disservice to her.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
I think, yeah, because you're.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Just But again, this is from Amanda's perspective.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
And she says they were friends. Yeah, so that's the heart.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
I think the blurring line of I almost wish they
had made it a bit more, almost a bit more fanciful,
and a bit more of a series rather than like
a beat by beat retelling of an event, because it
makes it even harder to kind of separate fact in
fiction because it's so a mesh together.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
It is really a mesh together. And if you do
want the answer to this question, did Amanda return to
Italy many years later, after she'd married Christopher Robinson and
had a little baby girl who we talked about earlier,
to meet with Minini who is she calls him my prosecutor,
who the man who investigated and then prosecuted the case. Yes,
she did do that. She did return to Italy. She
(48:50):
did have a conversation with him. We only know from
Amanda's perspective what that conversation looks like. And then there
is a scene at the end which makes it look
like Minini goes to confession. We don't know if that's true.
But the priest who Amanda spoke to in jail, and
who who also happened to be Mignini's childhood priest, and
who helped bring them together at the end, here's a
(49:11):
real person. And so maybe that did happen, maybe they did,
who knows, But yeah, there's a lot of blurring of
lines here. You just gotta remember when you go in
to watch this, it is from Amanda's perspective. Yes, it's
her narrative. It's her story. It's not merited story. That's
a story we're still yet to hear.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
And Amanda has actually addressed what her relationship with Meredith
Kirch's family looks like now on Mamma MIA's No Filter podcast,
talking to Caate Linebrooken and kind of explaining where she
sits with the family.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
Now, thanks so much for listening to this very special
crossover episode of the Spill and True Crime Conversations. The
Spill is produced by Manishayswarren and True Crime Conversations is
produced by Tarlie Blackman. Audio production for this episode was
done by Scott Stronik, with video production by Jillian Rosario. Bye.
We should do this again one day.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
We should stay tuned for another crossover
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I'm Laura Brodneck, host of The Spill, which is Mama
MIA's daily entertainment and pop culture podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And I'm Claire Murphy. I'm the host of True Crime Conversations,
which is our weekly true crime podcast speaking to the
people who know the most about these crimes. Well, i
am the host when Jemma Bath is not on maternity
leave and she will be returning never fear. But we
know just how popular true crime is, whether you listen
to it on a podcast, whether you watch it on
your streaming service of choice. But what about when crime
(00:46):
meets drama? And that is what we are talking about today.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yes, that is what we're here to discuss.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
So we are talking about the new Disney Plus series,
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
And if you're listening to this.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Through the Spill feed, we have heard all of your
comments that you want more true crime series and you
want to kind of dissect the actors and the production,
the behind the scenes facts, but you also want to
know what happened in the real life case and where
those people are now and why these stories were chosen
to be told in a dramatic fashion. So we're going
to be deep diving into that in today's episode. So Claire,
(01:20):
as our true crime expert, you're going to take us
through the Aman Dannox's case and what happened from the beginning,
because I think for a lot of people like myself,
I have such a memory of watching this unfold on
TV at the time, But there's so much more to
this case, I think, and it became a lot more
in depth than a lot of people realize.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, and if you got your information about this case
from the news media, then that may have actually twisted
the way you might see it or view it. So
we're going to get to the bottom of that as well.
But I'll step you through where this all began. Okay,
So first thing I need to warn you is that
this case spans years. Yes, so it went on for
a really long time, So bear with us. There's a
(02:00):
little bit to get through. It started off in September
two thousand and seven. That is when Meredith Kercher, who
was a British student. She was spending a year studying
abroad in Italy and she moved into a share accommodation,
which is the villa at seven Via della Pergola in Perusia.
And then later that same month, just ten days later,
(02:20):
Amanda Knox, who was an American student doing the same thing,
spending a year in Italy, she moved into the same address.
So there is four young girls living in this small
apartment or small villa. There are some boys living in
the flat downstairs, so they all share this villa together.
On October twenty five, Amanda meets a young Italian boy
called Rafaeli. Now they met at a concert. They are
(02:43):
immediately in love. They do that honeymoon period where they
spend literally every minute of every day together. She then
starts staying at his house essentially every night. She has
a job, so she goes and works at a bar,
local bar, and she is studying as well, so she's
doing that too. But essentially her and Rafaeli now become inseparable.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yes, And in the show it was depicted they had
only been together about week before the events of Meredith's
murder took place. And I saw a lot of feedback
from the show of people thinking that that was added
into the story for extra dramatic effect or to make
their relationship look more like a whirlwind, but they actually
isn't that correct. They only were together really for one
week before their whole world blot with his accusation.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Absolutely true, So they literally spent a week together out
in the world as a new couple before they were
thrown into all of this drama. So come November one,
so sometime after eight thirty pm, Meredith Kercher was murdered
in the villa she shares with her flatmates. Amanda and
Raphaeli are at Rafaelei's apartment and the two of them
(03:47):
both switch their phone off that night around the same
time that Meredith is murdered. Now, Amanda explains that she
had been messaging with her boss, who was maybe going
to go into work that night, and he messaged her
to say that she didn't have to come in, and
she was like, great, this means I get to spend
more time with my brand new, very handsome young man
boyfriend in his apartment. And so they watched a movie
(04:11):
and they ate some food and they smoked a joint together.
And Raphaeli had also turned his phone off because he
didn't want to speak to his dad. He spoke to
his dad every night on the phone, He's like, no,
I want the two of us to spend uninterrupted time together.
This is very important because police see that as in
this day and age, where technology is used so frequently
(04:32):
to track us, to find out where we are, to
marry up locations to potential crimes, that if you turn
your phone off it almost looks like an admission of guilt, yes,
that you have done something wrong, so that is part
of the case against them. She also sends a message
to her boss before turning her phone off that says thanks,
I'll see you later. That is interpreted by police very
(04:55):
differently had they not been Italian, if English had been
their first language, we say that all the time, see
you later, it's part of our vernacular, but in Italy
it's taken more lick.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
As if they had a plan to see each other later.
And when we're watching the series, you see Amanda trying
to explain to the police that it's just another form
of saying goodbye, and how quickly that leads to her
being implicated because again they're thinking that she's making a
plan to meet up with him and is he involved
or did she leave the apartment.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
And the fact that her boss is a certain nationality
also plays into this. We'll get to that in a second.
So it's the next morning. Amanda's woken up the night
before there'd been a spill or leaking something at Raphaeli's
how she wants to go home, She needs to get
a mop because he doesn't own one, typical man, and
then she also wants to have a shower and just
get changed. And she will later on explain why she
(05:45):
did that to Raphaeli in a very beautiful, lovely scene
where she'd like, I just wanted to look pretty for
you and wear a dress. But so she goes home
and the front door is open, which is not unusual
because the front door that they had of this villa
was a little bit dodgy. You had to physically keylock
it for it to stay shut, and if you didn't
do that, the wind would sometimes just blow it open.
(06:06):
So Amanda's thinking, one of my flatmates is just run
down the street to grab something, didn't think to key
lock the door. It's blown open by itself. Yes, So
she steps inside. She walks through to her own room,
She goes to have a shower. She steps out onto
the bath mat and realizes there's some blood on the
bath mat. She also notices a little bit of it
on the sink area too. Now, for anyone who's lived
(06:30):
in a sharehouse full of women, we know the blood
sometimes is a part of our day to day life. Yes,
was this menstrual blood? Did someone cut themselves shaving? It's
in the bathroom.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
There's so many possibilities that it could be so many
people using that bathroom.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Exactly right, So she goes, ooh, that's kind of gross,
but doesn't think that automatically jumped to someone's been murdered
in the house. She does notice, though, that someone has
gone to the toilet, they have done a pooh, and
they haven't flushed it, and that then is the first
time she fully realizes that something's not right. Yes, which
(07:04):
is interesting because if you live in a house full
of women, sometimes women can be pretty gross, especial when
it comes to mistrum blood. But there are certain things
that she knows her flatmates just would not do, and
that is leave an unflushed poo in the toilet. So
she leaves, and she asks Rafaeli to come back to
the house, and she's like, I don't understand what's happened.
(07:27):
She goes back inside realizes that one of her other
flatmates rooms has been broken into, so the window is
broken and there's glass on the ground. She's unsure if
she's been robbed because it's her flatmate's room, so she's
not sure if anything is missing, but she thinks someone
has maybe been in the house. And then when she
goes back past the bathroom, it looks like the pooh
has been flushed. She doesn't go in and have a
(07:48):
look at it, but it looks like it's been flushed,
so she goes, Oh my god, that person must have
been in the house while I was in the house.
So she starts to really freak out. Raphaeli turns up
and they have a look and they realize that Meredith,
one of her flat maids. Her door is locked. They
knock on it, they call her name, she doesn't answer.
They think she's not there, but they're not sure what's
going on. They call police, but two officers do turn up,
(08:09):
but they're not the police. They've actually called yes and
this is true, Two of the fraud investigation police turn
up because they have found two mobile phones thrown into
someone's back garden. Now they believe that the phones belong
to one of the other flatmates, not Meredith, but that
is due to a SIM card being shared amongst the girls.
(08:30):
They actually belong to Meredith, and so they've been taken
from her and thrown over the back fence of someone's property.
So these fraud cops turn up and they start to
ask them about the phones, and they're like, hang on,
we think someone's broken into our house. And so these
guys automatically become in charge of this crime scene.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
They end up.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Calling in investigators because when the other flatmates come home
and they will realize that Meredith's door is still locked,
one of these guys kicks the door open and finds
a body. Now, Meredith has been raped, She's had her
throat cut. There is blood everywhere.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
She's covered by.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Her bedding, so you can see in the crime scene
photos that one of her feet is sticking out and
you can see just the top of her head, but
there is a lot of blood. And so that is
when the homicide team is brought in and they start
to investigate. Now, this is where we have to understand
watching the Twister Tail of Amanda Knox. This is told
(09:33):
from Amanda's perspective. Yes, and not from the police's perspective.
The difference in the way the Italian justice system works
is very different to say, the American or the Australian
justice system. So the person who will be prosecuting you
in court is the same person who investigates the crime.
So Manini, who is a real man, is a real character,
(09:53):
so he's a real person, the character in the show.
So he comes on board as like the lead investigator,
but he's also going to be prosecuting this in court.
There is a detective who is also a real person,
a woman who takes an immediate dislike to Amanda. She's
one of the first to question her, and it's very
obvious that she distrusts Amanda's reaction to the crime. And
(10:18):
we can see this. It has been documented. Amanda does
stand outside with everybody else when the investigative team comes in,
and she's with Raphaeli, and you've got to remember they've
been together for days, they're still in the honeymoon period.
He's comforting her, she's like smiling and laughing with him,
and like they're cuddling and kissing a little bit, and
it all seems a little bit not right to the detectives.
(10:40):
They're like, if my flatmate, who I supposedly am quite
close to, even though we've only lived together for a
little while, if we are seeing it right, she's not
phased by her roommate being brutally murdered in her home.
So that is when things start to shift back to
the police station. They're all brought in for questioning. Meredith's friends,
(11:02):
the other roommates, Amanda and Raphaeli, are questioned, and it
seems like at the beginning they're already suspecting her. They
do ask her questions about her whereabouts, and they try
and find alibis. There is a lot because she's there
all day, and then it's noted that she's sitting in
Raphaeli's lap in the waiting room in the police station,
(11:24):
and again detectives are looking at this like this is
not the behavior of somebody whose friend has just been murdered.
Meredith's British friends are there and they too are looking
at this, thinking why is she acting this way when
Meredith has just been brutally slain in their home that
they share together. So there's a lot of questions being
asked about why a mandal did not act a certain
(11:44):
way in the aftermath of Meredith's death, and so then
the questioning amps up a little bit from detectives, and
then they allow her to go home. But it's already
the next day, almost and she's exhausted, and they tell her,
you need to be back here within a few hours.
So she goes home, has a shower, comes back again,
doesn't go home as a crime scene. She goes to
Rafaeli's as a shower comes back. She's exhausted, she has
(12:06):
had very little sleep, she doesn't really know what's going on,
and she's interrogated by police again and again and again.
And this is the interesting part of this whole thing
is that, as I said, this drama series is told
from Amanda's perspective. What is also true is that police
did not record this interrogation. Yes, we will never know
(12:29):
exactly what happened in that room. There is no evidence
to fall back on, there is no video. Amanda at
that time did not speak great Italian. She's hearing all
of this through an interpreter at a time where she's tired,
doesn't know what's going on. So her interpretation of it
is that they essentially coerced her into an admission of guilt.
(12:50):
So this is a little bit of what the interrogation
sounds like from Amanda's perspective in the Twist Tail of Amanda.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Knox, Remember, it's interesting listening to that and knowing how
(13:52):
much of a hand Amanda Knox had in not just
the creation of the show and the behind the scenes
and productions she's an executive producer, but she also gave
so much information to the writers and almost guided them
step by step of how she.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Wanted to eat to play out and how it came
from her memory. And then she even helped write some
of the episodes. And it's like they're looking back on
this very specific moment of media attention, like those moments
where she and Rafaeli are outside the house and they're hugging,
and that's the moment we're in the series, and in
real life we know the police kind of turned against them,
and both of them have looked back on that time,
(14:26):
and I think you can see it come through the
series because we're hearing it from Amanda's point of view,
is that she was quite shell shocked, and so she
was being very physical towards him because that's how she
deals with trauma. And he was almost clocking how it
looked to people around them. But he later on said
in his own memoir that he wrote about the situation.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
That he thought it was too cold to be.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Pushing her away in that moment where she was wanting
to be very affectionate, wanting to sit in his lap.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
It was like a comfort thing.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
And even scenes where you see her doing like leading integration,
like she does the splits in the waiting room and
all that sort of stuff, that all really happened, but
it's all just like a fear response from her as
what she's saying. And as we get led into the
interior gate. It's really interesting because as you're saying, there's
no film, there's no video of that moment. Everyone who's
in that room has a different story. But the camera
(15:14):
work and the way that they shape it to the
audience is almost like you're supposed to see it so
directly through Amanda's eyes, that like the camera frame keeps
getting smaller, the noises keep getting louder, they're getting repetitive.
It's all these kind of sensory tricks that exactly all
these sensory tricks that are laid over that are meant
to almost like make you feel as a viewer that
you're being interrogated to. The idea is like your hard
(15:35):
is supposed to start beating fast, you're supposed to start
getting in like a final flight situation. So when she
yells out Patrick's name at the end, it's almost like
this release of like wanting to know the escape of
exactly exactly because she's given them what they want in
that moment. So it's a really interesting twist of putting
you in Amanda's shoes. And I guess maybe that explains
(15:57):
what happened next if you're looking at the real crime.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, so you heard there. She says it was Patrick,
and Patrick is her boss at the bar, Patrick Mumba,
who is an African man who has immigrated to Italy
and he's opened this bar. Police had found a hair
in Meredith Kirch's bedroom which matched an African man. There
was a young black man living in the apartment downstairs
(16:22):
and he was terrified to hear that there was a
hair that potentially linked to him. But then they found
out that the person that Amanda had texted I'll see
you later, which they took literally, that man was also
of African origin. And so for them, puzzle pieces started
to click into place. Amanda had obviously organized to meet
(16:42):
this man at some stage that night, and that man
has hair that matches the one that's on the scene,
so it all makes sense to them. So she tells
them that Patrick did it, and all of a sudden,
the interrogation stops. And as we know now, and what
you do learn about in the drama series and the
documentary too that Amanda Knox has made about this, is
that is a very well known interrogation technique. It is
(17:03):
one that police had been using for a very long time,
and we've seen cases be overturned like the Central Park
five for example, the same interrogation technique was used on
them and they falsely confess to a murder that they
did not commit. And so we've seen it happen before
where if you just layer on the pressure and you
get people to think that maybe then remembering something wrong,
(17:25):
and then you plan to see that potentially it happened
this way, like maybe you did leave the apartment that night,
maybe you did meet with Patrick, maybe you did go
back to your apartment, and then they start to make
you believe, under stress and duress that you are wrong
and they are right, and so to stop it, all
you can do is admit. And so that is what
we're seeing play out from Amanda's perspective. Now, the detectives
(17:48):
they say that it did not play out like that,
that that interrogation did not happen like that. Also, Amanda
claimed she was hit in the head a couple of
times during it, which they say did not happen. And
they say that at no stage did they plant to
seed that it was Patrick like that came from her.
They said that they did not do that. So we
can't know what the truth is in amongst all of that.
(18:09):
So moving on, It's now November nineteen, so it's eighteen
days since Meredith's murder, and police announced that there is
actually a new suspect. They've arrested Patrick, Amanda, and Raphaeli
at this stage, and they realized that a man who
had been arrested a few days before Merediths murder for
breaking into a kindergarten, essentially that he is actually the
(18:32):
suspect linked to Merediths murder. His name is Rudy Gadet.
He is also an African immigrant into Italy and he
had a rap sheet robberies, various crimes against women like
so he really fit them. So when they figured out
that Rudy was their guy, they had to let Patrick
go because his alibis stood.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Up and was checked.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And they did manage to find Rudy Gadet at a
train station and they arrest him. Now Amanda and RAPHAELI
at this stage think okay, they've finally found the murderer.
They will let us go. No, that is not what happened.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
In fact, police ramp up their involvement and they create
a narrative that there was some kind of sexual nature
to the crime. Obviously, Meredith was raped, so that was
already where they were being led. But they believed that
it was more than just a man breaking in and
(19:27):
raping Meredith. That Amanda and Rafaeley were playing some kind
of game and they wanted to involve Meredith and she
didn't want to and that's why she was killed. They
also had been collecting DNA from the scene, and this
is what will bring them unstuck. Later on down the
track they film the entire thing. They find DNA of
(19:48):
merediths on a knife that has both Amanda and Rafaele's
DNA on it. Also it was it Rafaele's apartment. They
also find some of Rafaele's DNA on a brass strap
that looks to have been broken off in some kind
of scuffle, but as well later find out, those two
were then eventually thrown out, So Rudy Gudet asks for
a separate trial, and he's fast tracked so with before
(20:12):
Amanda and Rafaelli even make it to court. He is
found guilty, sent to jail, and sentenced, so like he's
over and done with. So then later Amanda and Rafaeli
go to trial, and at this stage is when the
media really starts to sink its teeth into this story.
Back in the day it was MySpace, they'd trolled through
Amanda's MySpace and found every picture that made her look
(20:33):
even vaguely bad, and they start referring to her by
a nickname Foxy Noxy, which sounds terrible but was actually
a nickname given to her when she was playing soccer
as a child, and they made her into this kind
of vixen character who obviously was doing this for some
kind of sexual gratification and then turned on Meredith in
the moment. So if we fast forward now, too. December four,
(20:54):
two thousand and nine, the jury finds a Manda in
Rafaeli guilty, which comes as a real shock to everybody
because the way that that case was handled, the prosecutors
didn't hand over a lot of the evidence until very late.
They didn't have a chance to refute a lot of it.
They were really kind of flying by the seat of
their pants a lot of these junctures of the trial,
(21:16):
and they found guilty and they're sent off to prison,
and the two of them are so shell shocked they
don't really know what to do. Amanda claims, then that's
when she really started to research her own investigation. And
by this stage she's becoming more fluent in Italian, so
she can redocumentation better and she can understand the process
(21:38):
is a bit better. But the media has really sunk
its teeth into the point where every little thing is
being leaked of hers to the press. So, for example,
and this is true in the drama, when she was
admitted into prison, they took a blood test and they
falsely found her positive for HIV and she was told basically,
that's it, you have HIV. And you know, in the
(21:58):
early two thousands, we didn't treat it as well as
what we do in twenty twenty five. It was a
terrifying diagnosis then, but she was kind of just told, oh, yep,
that's it, and then to write a list of men
that she potentially had sexual contact with so that they
can be contacted. That list was then stolen from her
cell and given to the media to paint another picture
of just how immoral that this young American girl was. Eventually,
(22:22):
there is an appeal, so twenty eleven they go back
to court on appeal. This is when the DNA evidence
becomes crucial. So they watch the video of how the
DNA collection process was handled, and you can see in
the investigation's own video evidence that they handled it incorrectly. So,
(22:43):
just as an example, that brass strap that we spoke
about before, in the first video evidence, we can see
it's underneath Meredith's pillow, and then by the next time
that they collect that evidence, it's on the floor under
the corner of a rug.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
So it's been contaminated.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
In the drama series, and there's a question of like
how much is it being contaminated, and the person says,
like it doesn't actually matter because the fact that it's
being moved and handled already made exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Exactly right, and you can see. And in the original
trial they looked at that brashtup that obviously it had
been forcefully pulled apart and like the prongs.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Were pulled apart.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
But really what had happened is it's obviously been stood
on while it's on the floor, and you can see
that in the evidence between when you first see it
and when you second see it. And then as far
as the DNA on the knife is concerned, there was
so little trace evidence that they had to override the
DNA testing machine in order for it to register. And
they were questioned in court about that, and they said,
(23:38):
if you didn't override that machine, wouldn't have found trace
DNA of all three of them, and they said, probably
not of Meridith's DNA. So and also they found that
the knife had been transported in a box that had
had other things in it, so it was it was
poorly handled.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
So they were acquitted.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
After that, Amanda goes home to the US, Rafaeli attempts
to get on with his life. Amanda and Raphaeley again
brought to trial in Italy. They decided to secute them
they are found guilty. The next time around, Amanda does
not return to Italy from the US. Raphaeli does eventually
return to Italy to try and defend himself, and then
(24:16):
there is another appeal on that and they do then
equit them and that's it. Case closed. So this goes
on for quite a few years. But as we can see,
there is a lot of truth in the drama the
way that it's depicted. But also we can never know
what exactly happened in some of these situations because it
is not documented.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yes, so it's very much from her point of view
and her experience and her take on it. So in
that case, it's not meant to be I don't think
watched as a factual program. It's more there to just
see it through her eyes. And for a lot of people,
they're coming to this story for nearly the first time
through this drama.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, and if you were, like I said, understanding it
from just media reports, the way that she was portrayed
was interesting, that she had become this kind of demon girl,
this American demon sexual deviant that they really pay her as,
and it was widely believed in the press that she
was some kind of awful murderer who was in it
(25:12):
for sexual pleasure.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yes, that she was like a sex craze, meaning and
to be honest, like I do understand. I mean I
don't understand of obviously the horrific side of this, of
like taking a murder investigation and demonizing someone who had
that stage hadn't been found guilty and was later acquitted.
But I do understand because it's like a perfect storm
of everything that the media in some parts thrives on,
but also what consumers want, like nothing sells better and
(25:36):
nothing gets better numbers or more attention than a beautiful
young woman, especially a beautiful young white woman at the
center of some sort of very intense and gruesome crime.
It's like all of these different facets of society coming together.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
And who doesn't respond in the moment like we would
expect someone to. And she does kind of explain that
she has a bit of a weird personality and she
doesn't always act in a way that people understand, and
as we know now we understand not everyone reacts the same.
So it is really interesting. But also to where I
read an article by an Italian journalist who was, like
everyone said, the Italian media was out to get her
(26:10):
and demonize her, and that is partly true, but it
was more the American press and others who picked up
on that and ran with it.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Oh absolutely, And we know from looking back at the
coverage that so many American news outlets sent whole news teams,
camera people, reporters over there who were there for months
at a time, camped in front of the crime scene,
camped outside of the prison, the courthouse, following Amanda's family
around and people involved in the story. And a lot
of the story came from just images that they would
(26:39):
capture of her going in and out of different court proceedings,
and not just what was in the court room at
the time. And if you look at just the pictures
and the videos at the time, I mean, I know,
we're looking through it through a lens of like the
story being fed at the time, but she does look
very guilty if you look at just the media coverage,
she does look like a vixen who orchestrated to kill
someone because of the pictures they've chose to run, because
(27:00):
of the videos they showed, and because she wasn't acting
like a perfect victim of how you would expect someone
that situation to react.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, and it is really interesting to watch this drama
understanding the true crime behind it because a lot of
it is factual, like a lot of it is, and
their recreation of the crime scene. The court proceedings weren't
recorded either, so we don't know exactly. They were behind
closed doors, so we don't know exactly what happened there,
But there were photographers in the courtroom that captured these
moments too, and they really recreated some of that incredibly well,
(27:31):
to the point where when I was looking at some photos,
I had to stop myself and go, hang on, is
that the real Amanda Knox or is that the actress
playing Amanda Knox? Because they did a really faithful recreation
of her outfits, the apartment, inside the apartment, which was
really quite incredible. I scrolled through the crime scene photos
myself and how to look at what it really looked like,
and it really does. They've done a very faithful job
(27:53):
at recreating it.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
And that's part of the reason getting into why this
TV show exists, is that they wanted to be really
faithful to the story. And obviously there's a lot of
back and forth over whether the TV show.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Should exist or not.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Like even people who don't have any thoughts on whether
or not she's guilty or what happened have a bit
of an issue of one a story like this being
dredged up, but too if it was even necessary to
put it into like the entertainment drama space. Because since
Amanda Knox was acquitted that final time, she's written two
different memoirs, she's done a podcast, there's so many documentaries,
(28:27):
some that she's had a hand and some that she hasn't.
She's done well over one hundred interviews at this stage,
just because she's done so many.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Here at Muma Mia, which will play a little in
a minute.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yes, exactly, like she has really told her story. So
a lot of people were thinking, like why go back
for like another sip from the well to this story.
So there's a lot of questions and commentary around whether
or not this TV show should have been made and
should it exist. I think we both have strong feelings
on that. There's a lot of strong feelings from the public,
which is what we're going to get into next. So
(28:59):
you've say the Amanda Knox case so closely now you've
watched the full drama series. I know you've seen all
of the commentary from people who have watched it. The
family is involved. What's your thought on whether or not
this TV show should exist?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I'm so conflicted.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah, me too. Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, even everything we've consumed, usually at this stage of
the game, I would have a very clear view of
whether or not something like this should have been made.
But like everything else with this story, it's like very complex.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
It is, And I think the biggest thing is that
this will never be Meredith Kirtch's story. Yes, and that
is what is touched on a little bit in the
Twister Tale of Amanda Knox, that it should be about
a beautiful young woman whose life was cut tragically. Sure,
and it should be about the man who did that
to her and the fact that he is spending his
(29:46):
life behind bars, although I believe he's been released now.
So why is it never about Meredith? Why is it
always about Amanda? And she acknowledges that, and she acknowledges
that Meredith is now essentially her story. But for the
family of Meredith, like I can fully understand why they
have responded the way they have, Like, why are we
doing this again? Why do we keep talking about this story,
(30:07):
like this is Amanda's story, but also if you put
yourself in Amanda shoes and someone falsely accused me of murder,
sent me to prison and really dragged my name through
the mud for years and years and years, a legacy
that she still lives with to this day. There are
still legions of people who do not believe her. They
believe that she is guilty, absolutely, and they will tell her.
(30:30):
And there is a part in the series where she
starts to like understand the new technology that she's come
back into the world to see, and the messages she
starts to get are pretty intense, and you know, there
are death threats and you know, telling her to take
her own life, and like that's an intense thing to
deal with all the time. So would I, in Amanda
(30:51):
Shoes want to keep telling my story so that people
understand me better and who understand the situation better. I
guess I get it from her perspective and wanting to
set the record straight over and over and over when
people still don't believe you, Like I really understand that.
But I just I feel for Meredith's family whose story
just gets overlooked, misunderstood, And there are still people even
(31:16):
in Meredith's family, who aren't sure what they believe either. Yes,
So to see Amanda also profiting from this, like, that's
hard for them to see and hard for them to take.
So I'm still really conflicted. I get it, but I
don't want to see Meredith again become the victim.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, And that's the difficult thing of watching it is
that Meredith Kirch's family were contacted in the lead up
to the show, like before opened production, and they told
production they wanted nothing to do with it, which was
expected so they pushed on a head without it, but
it was more so when the show was released and
the fact that it's been coming out weekly and even
the lead up to that with Amanda, like releasing a
podcast and doing a lot of press around that and
(31:54):
seeing all those headlines come up again, and the response
from the family was always, please don't do this, Please
don't drag this up again. Please don't drag her name
in front of the world again. And it's something that
Amanda Knox does talk about quite a bit, and something
I always want to watching interviews with her find interesting
is that she often say to the interviewer, you know
my name and you know Merita's name, but do you
know the name of the man who actually committed the crime.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
And a lot of the time people don't.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Know his name, and they don't know his story or
his face or anything because he's not a young woman.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
And that's not an.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Exciting part of the case. But in terms of why
they made it, Amanda Knox has always said that it's
because she gave birth to a daughter and then suddenly
she realized that her daughter would be growing up in
a world where so many people still thought she was
guilty of murder, and.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
She's inheriting a legacy exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
And it's almost like reading between the lines of listening
to a man to speak about this is that it's
almost like her last ditch effort to clear her name
through drama, because she knows how much, especially at this
point in time, right now, how much the world responds
to drama in a way that we sometimes don't respond
to an interviewer and an article. So she's written the memoirs,
she's done press to us so many times over the years,
(32:59):
she's done the podcast, so many people have released information
about it, and yet she only saw a drama as
they to clear her name essentially, and maybe it's because
she could have complete control over the narrative that in
a way you can't have with even a memoir or something,
because a memoir you're just reading the same voice all
the way through. With the TV show, you're seeing all
of these actors relive those moments, and like we're saying,
(33:22):
it was a very sensory heavy show, so you almost
feel like you've gone through it with her. And so
that idea was like people would watch the show and
it's so through her eyes that you would come out
of it believing her. And the subtext I think of
all her interviews is that she thought that was worth
bringing it up again as like one last attempt to
clear her name.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, and we are seeing this real moment for these
stories being told in this manner. So like the Menendez brothers,
for example, I had reported on their story as a
journalist many times over the years as they've kind of
attempted to be free, and I had a very preformed
opinion of whether I thought what they did was done
(34:04):
purely for greed, which is what they'd been positioned as
in the media and by the prosecution. And then when
you see their stories dramatized and you understand a little
bit more about what was going on behind closed doors,
and you understand that you know, maybe as children they
were abused, and so you know, you understand the crime
a little bit better. And now there are calls for
(34:26):
their freedom, even though they are not free as of
us recording this podcast. But I can understand why Amanda
might want to also be a part of this moment
where people are reclaiming their own narrative, especially when it's
through a drama that can take you to the place
and the time and can put you in the situation
and like if I was twenty in a foreign country
(34:46):
where I don't speak the language, was accused of a terrible,
terrible crime and have no family support and not understand
what's happening to me and finding myself in jail, not
even understanding what I've signed. Because the truth of the
matter is she signed a document and she didn't even
fully understand what it was she was signing, And so
(35:08):
to put myself in that position like that would be terrifying. Yeah,
and I don't think you get that, You're right when
you listen to her speak on a podcast or you
read her memoir it doesn't put you in the time
and place, and it doesn't make you experience that alongside her.
And I think it's actually kind of smart because I
did legitimately change my view on this case after watching.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah Yeah to an extent, and again, it just nothing
kind of pulls you in like a drama. It's like
we saw this year with Apple side of vinegram Bell Gibson,
Like a lot of people knew that story, they knew
that she had lied about having cancer, but there was
this renewed kind of rally behind the victims and the
journalists involved in everything worldwide in a way that hadn't
happened even when we saw Bell Gibson giving these interviews.
And I think with the drama too, it's so many
(35:49):
elements of being able to control it. But also like
the choice of actress, like with Grace van Patten, who
gives this very kind of vulnerable performance, and she's acting
in a way that we didn't at least in the
clips we saw, and this was like a very strategic
thing from the production team from her because she's to
be playing a woman who's been thrust into this and
so we don't see her acting for the cameras in
(36:11):
the way that people think Amanda Knox did, and a
lot of effort went into casting the exact right person
for that role, which you can imagine because they didn't
want to cast an actress who might be almost painted
with the same brush that Amanda Knox is, like, is
she seen a sexualized actress? What of the roles has
she played? Will she come across as like not sympathetic
and vulnerable enough? And so there was this real call
(36:33):
to find a very vulnerable looking actress, which I think
Grace Van Patten, who most people would know from the
TV show Tell Me Lies, is kind of almost known
for being that type of character actress where she often
plays the more subdued, kind of almost victim character, and
it was meant to be Margaret Kawley. Originally she was
attached and they moved her out and put her into
this role. But I think the other interesting thing is
(36:53):
who else is involved behind the scenes of this production,
which is one of Kolowinski, which was a real surprise.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
When I saw them sitting on an American TV show
on the couch next to each other, I'm like, oh,
that's an interesting lineup of guests and didn't realize they
were talking about the exact sect, the.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Very project they've been working on. So they met in
twenty seventeen. They were both speaking at an event, and
Amanda said that she was like getting quite overcome and
quite stressed about publicly speaking, but also just everything about
reliving her story over and over again. And she says
she went to the green room and she was stressing out,
and Monica Lewinsky came in and they very instantly bonded,
shared stories. Monica Lewinsky was giving her tips on how
(37:30):
to do this next part of being in the public eye.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
I've spent the majority of my adult life feeling like
no one cared what I had to say, and anything
I did say was always twisted against me. And then
I find myself invited to go give a talk for
the first time ever, and I'm utterly terrified. I also
learned that someone else is going to be speaking at
this event, and it happens to be the one and
(37:55):
only Monica Lewinsky, whose Vanity Fair articles and whose TED
talks have given me hope that there might be a
path forward in my life. And so I asked the organizer.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
If I could, please, please please meet her.
Speaker 6 (38:11):
I think Amanda was the highlight of that event that day, and.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
People were so.
Speaker 6 (38:19):
I think they were just so impressed by you, which
I was when we first met, and I had so
much compassion for you, and it really was kind of
the beginning of us knowing each other.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Montical Luwinski, for anyone who doesn't know, in the late
nineteen nineties, was working in the White House and said
that she had had an affair with then President Bill
Clinton and was absolutely, there's no other way to put it,
such shamed and painted to be a liar and all
of these things.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
She seduced the president, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
And became not just a huge villain and this hatred
of the world, but also just became a mockery and
just basically the entire world turned against her. And you
talk about people being canceled, but they don't really get canceled,
but she was really canceled.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Thet jokes for like decades after that occurred, and she
has been the epitome of reclaiming the narrative exactly. And
that's where social media has actually been the most amazing
thing for some people, because she took to then Twitter,
which is now ex and we finally got to know
who Monica Lewinsky actually is and is not just this
(39:27):
vixen intern who happened to, you know, seduce the most
powerful man in the world.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Yes, because it did come out that she was telling
the truth.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Yes, yes, yeah, And she also has had a hand
in documentaries about that situation where she has been actually
asked about those experiences and has told them exactly what happened.
And so she's been able to really turn around being
the butt of every late night post joke for a
long time. And she talks about her mum sitting next
(39:54):
to her bed and like begging her not to take
her own life because of just how bad it got
for her in the late nineties and early two thousands,
and so she is now thriving because she's been able
to tell her story and be believed. So that's it
makes sense now that the two of them are working.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Together exactly, and that's why Monica wanted to be involved
in the Amanda Knox. In the televised version of her story,
she said, I can't relate to being falsely accused of
a crime like that because of her situations. A different
situation was more of a situation of public shaming, and
she's like, and I can't relate to being falsely in prison,
but I do know what it's like to have the
world turn against you and have your story not be
(40:31):
your own. And I think even though she had hard
evidence to show that what she said about the president
and everything that happened to her afterwards was true, a
lot of people still saw her, as you're saying, in
a different light. So when they did them, one of
Kolounsky TV series Johan vanie Feldstein played her, It's again
that whole thing of drama reshaping a narrative in the
way that factual information can't, was that brought a whole
(40:54):
new audience over to her site. So I think that's
why she was so instrumental on this Amanda NOx series
of being an executive producer and being able to say, like,
tell this part of the story, or don't tell this part,
or even like we don't know the extent of it.
But I think she would even be coaching her through
the press around it and everything to sort of shape
it as like the perfect kind of reclaiming of her story.
Because in the series, Amanda does become this strong hero,
(41:17):
like she always becomes like a young adult, like a
cat and has Everdeen or something. Towards the end and off,
you felt that it was done in a very careful
way for her to first be a victim and then
they kind of made her into this hero, and like
she's not just clearing her own name, but she's standing
up against the systems.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Becoming an advocate for you.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
And she's walking into the courtroom and saying, like, I
speak the language, I do this, I've done the work.
And then we see her coming back into the prison
and everyone applauding for her and cheering for her and
her being seen as this savior.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Okay, I hold that thought, Laura Brodnick, because I think
what really shook me a little bit watching this is
that break from reality into fantasy that happens quite regularly
throughout the entire series. So I want to get your
take on exactly why that is and what is happening next. So,
as we mentioned just before the break, then if you're
(42:06):
watching this series, you would have noticed that sometimes it's
Amanda telling her story and she does a little bit
of that via narration, which I know some people despise.
I actually quite like it. But then it'll cut to
really fanciful scenes. In one she's a child and her
teddy bears are applauding her for performing a little at
home dance, and often it's like there's one in a
(42:28):
library where she's like floating around on the ladder that
goes up and rolls around, Like it's this weird pull
from reality into fantasy.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
What is that about.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, it's interesting to bring up because that is the
part of the show that a lot of critics and
viewers had the most issue with, because a lot of
what people gave the show a pass for is the
fact that they said Amanda was trying to tell her
story and also on a Meredith story, and we see
a bit of a montage of Meredith at the end
as a sort of like just remember she's at the
center of this. But a lot of people feel that
(43:00):
that feels very disingenuous when they also added these fantasy
elements to it, but it was very specific choice because
Amanda Knox and the team said that they wanted to
add all these facets of magical realism and magical realism
if you're not across the whole fantasy kind of world,
like we have high fantasy, which is a whole world
being recreated with its whole different ways of being.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
In its own rules.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
And then you have more of like fantasy, which is
very kind of old school, like a whole world that's
touched by magic. And then you have magical realism, which
is a story that takes place in our world as
it is now and there's one tiny string of magic
and that's what we kind of see from Amanda's point
of view, and they wanted to do that. It's interesting
because at the top of the series you almost feel
like you're watching like a bit of an Italian kind
(43:43):
of romantic drama, and that's very deliberate from them, because
they wanted to show that it's all about putting you
in Amanda's mind and in her mind. At the start
of the show, when we meet her, she is a
young woman in Italy having adventure and having a new
romance and how intoxicating that is, and they wanted to
show that as the story went long, those moments where
you see the Teddy Bears applauding her or her floating
(44:05):
one is that there trying to make a little omage
to some movies like an Emily or a pulp fiction.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
And RAFAELI watched The Night of Merits Man.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Which apparently is the movie they watched that night, and
there's a kind of a few fanciful scenes in that movie,
but they took it the next step higher. And this
is where I think maybe I take issue with some critics,
is like, you can't have a story that is about
telling this huge truth that's based on a rape and
murder and frame yourself as emily like. They're two very
different methods of story's telling clashed.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
It's jarring, is jarring, and it's it's hard, especially when
you're looking at it from a true crime perspective, because
like you are, as you said earlier, pulled into this
world which is really intense, and it feels like you're
being interrogated or you're in prison with her, and you're
so like you lose all hope at some stages, and
then you know it's all like butterflies and fairies and
(44:56):
it feels like, oh my god, where is my brain now?
Supposed to take.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
That, Yeah, and I would have probably maybe liked it
more as a storytelling device if maybe you can see
her from the beginning to the end and as she's
in prison for so many years if you maybe saw
her start to lose her grip on reality as the
show goes along and she starts.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Having So she's some sort of allusion.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, maybe something, because like you do, hear of people
in these situations that things like that happen, that their
mental state becomes so intensified that they do start hallucinating
or recreating stories.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
But the way it's threaded through.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
It's to show that she's almost an otherworldly being, and
they're trying to show that she has this very fancible mind.
She's not like other people, which is why she didn't
react in a certain way. So it all comes that
full circle of trying to show her innocence. But I
think it comes across as a little messy and a
little self indulgent. And self indulgent is what a lot
of people have labeled the series.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
And you really can't be self indulgent when you're trying
to tell your story in the midst of the murder
of someone who you called a friend. Like that is hard.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, it's almost The thing is like they did what
they set out to do, which I find the interesting
thing too, Like I find it difficult to sit down
and watch a series like this and say, but you
should have told this or you should have told that,
Like it's the Amanda Knock story is kind of what
it's meant to be. What I think we need is
we need someone to go and make more of a
Meredith story, which, to be honest, I don't think i've
(46:14):
seen anything. I know a lot about her life, but
I don't think there's anything that's attributed completely to her
where we would see a dramatization of like her childhood,
her life.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
And even in Les, we don't even see a dramatization
of her murder. We only see Amanda turn up after
the fact.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, and I guess like the thinking from the writer's
team is that they didn't want to They obviously have
to use her name in her story because it's so
wrapped up in Amanda, but they didn't want it to
be overly glory and see that as kind of like
a voyeurism into her murder, which is so much of
true crime can be if done the wrong way, it
can be.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
But also, like when we're talking about the rape and
murder of a young woman, it feels like that should
be given a bit more gravitas than it has, Like
it wasn't we weren't given a moment to mourn Meredith, yes,
at all during this whole thing. And maybe that's the point,
because Amanda also wasn't given an opportunity to mourn her friend,
Like maybe that's the reason for that. But myself was,
(47:06):
you know, the voyeur looking in on this. I felt
like Meredith was this kind of other worldly character who
you never really get to know.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, she's like a faithless victim almost in a story
that is about the end of her life, but also
her life and her and I know thistimes like in
the they do like cut to looking at her family
members and cut to looking at her friends, and so
get you get a little bit of her life through
their reaction, but not a lot. And I guess it's
also at the top of the show because it's told
through Amanda's perspective and that it was dramatized. It very
(47:36):
much shows her and Meredith's becoming friends and this closeness
between them, which if you listen to any of Meredith's
friends or family, they say that they weren't close friends,
they didn't get along, that Meredith felt very uneasy about her,
and something about that I find almost more troubling, because
not showing the murder and the impact of the rape
(47:57):
is definitely not the best choice. But also rewriting this
woman to have this friendship she didn't have to make
the character of Amanda look more sympathetic is also a
disservice to her.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
I think, yeah, because you're.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Just But again, this is from Amanda's perspective.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
And she says they were friends. Yeah, so that's the heart.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
I think the blurring line of I almost wish they
had made it a bit more, almost a bit more fanciful,
and a bit more of a series rather than like
a beat by beat retelling of an event, because it
makes it even harder to kind of separate fact in
fiction because it's so a mesh together.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
It is really a mesh together. And if you do
want the answer to this question, did Amanda return to
Italy many years later, after she'd married Christopher Robinson and
had a little baby girl who we talked about earlier,
to meet with Minini who is she calls him my prosecutor,
who the man who investigated and then prosecuted the case. Yes,
she did do that. She did return to Italy. She
(48:50):
did have a conversation with him. We only know from
Amanda's perspective what that conversation looks like. And then there
is a scene at the end which makes it look
like Minini goes to confession. We don't know if that's true.
But the priest who Amanda spoke to in jail, and
who who also happened to be Mignini's childhood priest, and
who helped bring them together at the end, here's a
(49:11):
real person. And so maybe that did happen, maybe they did,
who knows, But yeah, there's a lot of blurring of
lines here. You just gotta remember when you go in
to watch this, it is from Amanda's perspective. Yes, it's
her narrative. It's her story. It's not merited story. That's
a story we're still yet to hear.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
And Amanda has actually addressed what her relationship with Meredith
Kirch's family looks like now on Mamma MIA's No Filter podcast,
talking to Caate Linebrooken and kind of explaining where she
sits with the family.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
Now, thanks so much for listening to this very special
crossover episode of the Spill and True Crime Conversations. The
Spill is produced by Manishayswarren and True Crime Conversations is
produced by Tarlie Blackman. Audio production for this episode was
done by Scott Stronik, with video production by Jillian Rosario. Bye.
We should do this again one day.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
We should stay tuned for another crossover
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