There are several things that point to this, for example, the defendants changed their accounts of their whereabouts and activity on the night in question several times. When first questioned she claimed that she'd been at Sollecito's house all night , later on however, she decided that she couldn't be sure that she'd been at his house and that she may have been at the shared villa for some of the time. At one point, she even claimed to have heard Meredith screaming. It's a tad difficult to see how she confused these versions of events in her head given the circumstances don't you think? I mean surely a shock of that nature brings everything into clarity and you remember exactly what you've been doing, that is if you're not trying to forget I suppose. Sollecito for his part, confirmed that Knox had been at his home that night but that she may have come and gone, in other words, she could have been anywhere.
Then, there is the behaviour of the couple in the days immediately following the murder. This may seem harsh, but think about it, if you've just arrived home early in the morning to find your housemate, classmate and friend lying raped and murdered in the house that you shared, you would expect to have some kind of reaction, wouldn't you? Where was the shock, disgust, pity, fear that it could have been you the killer found that night or that possibly you could be next. None of those emotions or behavioural patterns were displayed by either one of the pair. In fact there is television footage showing Amanda Knox turning cartwheeels close to the crime scene and Italian police have stated that during interviews Knox seemed totally disinterested and during certain interviews sat on Sollecito's lap gazing at him and playing with his hair whilst giving evasive answers to the questions she was being asked. This does not sound like somebody whose world has come crashing down, somebody whose quiet idyllic life has been shattered by totally horrific unforeseen events. Again, it seems to me that, given the circumstances and assuming innocence, you would try to help the police in anyway possible, so that the killer would be found, your friend's family would be spared more grief and you could try to feel safe again and get on with life.
Amanda Knox claimed in her appeal that her story changed several times because of police brutality and in fact claims that she was beaten into saying things that were not true. I find this hard to believe, and no physical evidence has ever been produced to back these claims up and in fact she had to face criminal slander proceedings because of the allegations. During the original investigation Knox and Sollecito tried to pin the blame for the murder on Congolese bar owner Patrice Lumumba who employed Knox at the time and was known to both Meredith and the two future defendants. This lie ,however, was swiftly and openly exposed when upon questioning, it transpired that Lumumba had a cast iron alibi.
Then, there is the staged robbery at the villa, carried out to make it look as if Meredith was killed as the result of a botched burglary. Drawers were turned out, possessions were scattered, but nothing of significance was taken and most incriminatingly, the windows appeared to have been smashed from the inside. It would make sense to me that, if entering a house to rob it and encountering a resident, you then proceed to attack that resident in such a way that Meredith Kercher was attacked, making a lot of noise and a lot of mess, after the killing you might actually rob the house. Let's face it, if you are committed enough to kill the only resident (cos Knox wasn't there remember) and neither were the others, rather than flee the scene empty handed, you're gonna take anything you can carry, don't you think? Certainly there would be no reason to smash the windows from the inside, unless you committed murder and in a panic at what you had done, you made a crass attempt to cover it up by trying to make it look like robbery.
During the original trial an eyewitness placed Knox at the scene of the crime at around the time that the murder took place, at the appeal however, the very expensive, slick defence team attacked the credibility of this witness and therefore the reliability of the testimony. They succeeded. One man, Rudy Guede, now the only person serving a sentence for his part in the murder, has testified under oath as to the involvement of both Knox and Sollecito in the perpetration of this atrocity. This testimony has now also been discredited. Why? It is because the Judge allowed the appeal jury to hear testimony from a "former cellmate" of Guede, himself a convicted child murderer, which stated that Guede had lied about the defendants. How can this evidence be reliable in the first place? It's hearsay, prison talk, it doesn't amount to anything! Secondly, you have to ask yourself why? Why come forward? Why, a convicted child killer, serving a life sentence, a man with no prior involvement with the case, a man with evidently no moral code at all, would come forward and offer this testimony in a court of law. What's in it for him? Why does he care? It doesn't make any sense! Unless, of course, either some kind of coercion, in the form of a threat against him, has been used, or more likely, good old fashioned bribery has been employed. The Italian police may want to check this guy's bank accounts over the next few years or check who pays his future legal fees.
The prosecution and particularly the detectives investigating at the time, made mistakes. Of that there can be no question. Some of the evidence was gathered wrongly, and cross contamination of the DNA samples may have occurred, however a request for re-examination of this evidence by the prosecution was thrown out by the appeal judge, a decision that left me baffled. The point though, that I will again re-iterate, is that while the literally blood stained knife or bra strap could not definitely prove the murderers' identities, it did not disprove them either, not only that, the police believed very strongly that they had the right people. Whilst of course they are not infallible by any stretch of the imagination, they are professionals, they deal with this type of scene on a regular basis, they deal with murderers often, and their absolute belief in Knox and Sollecito's guilt must, at least, be respected.
During questioning after the murder and during the first trial Knox displayed a tendency towards a Narcissitic personality, not only was no remorse shown, but no empathy with the victim's family, nor any kind of impassioned plea of her own innocence. Sure, she went through the motions, she said she didn't do it, but, having got that far, actually being in court, a totally innocent person would, surely by that point be beside themselves with emotion, desperately trying to make the court and the outside world believe their innocence; no? This did not happen at the original trial, in fact, it was conspicious by its absence. This time things were a little different. To Knox's hugely expensive defence team it will not have gone unnoticed that, because of her demeanour, she came across as cold and uncaring to the jury. They were not going to allow that mistake this time, Knox's perfectly stage managed final statement to the court in fluent Italian being a magnificent example. The question is ,why she was so cold and uncaring? Given the circumstances, what had just happened to somebody she had been sharing her house and, by her own admission, her life with. Why also, if not guilty, did she lie repeatedly? Changing her story from one week to the next, forgetting details and making up new ones as and when it suited her.
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