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By Root 267 0

the principal players in both cases several times and often videotaped the interviews, which resulted in more than twenty hours of exclusive footage pertinent to the case. Unless otherwise attributed, quotes from Edda Mellas, Curt Knox, and the Sollecito family come from formal interviews and informal conversations throughout 2008 and 2009. Comments from the jurors come from interviews I conducted with them soon after the verdict in December 2009. Quotes from the lawyers and prosecutors are from text messages, e-mail exchanges, formal interviews, and informal conversations in Rome, in Florence, in the halls of the courthouse, and on the streets of Perugia. I spoke to all these attorneys frequently in various settings; Perugia is a small town where all sides involved in Italy’s “trial of the century” were constantly crossing paths.

I also made a valuable friend in Italo Carmignani, a seasoned crime reporter for Il Messaggero with great local contacts; he generously shared his exclusive knowledge of the case. In addition, I did extensive interviewing in Perugia among the students familiar with the social scene in 2007 and traveled to Seattle in the summer of 2008 to investigate Amanda’s background. Andrea Vogt of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, who is based in Bologna, shared photos of Amanda’s neighborhood and schools in Seattle.

Finally, I traveled frequently to Florence in 2009 to attend court sessions in the abuse-of-office case against Giuliano Mignini, the lead prosecutor in the Knox trial.

Cast of Characters

THE VICTIM

Meredith Kercher, student

THE CONVICTED

Rudy Guede, local drifter

Amanda Knox, student

Raffaele Sollecito, student

THE ACCUSED

Patrick Lumumba, bar owner

THE JUDGE

Giancarlo Massei, decided case with second judge

THE PROSECUTION

Monica Napoleoni, head of Perugia’s homicide squad Giuliano Mignini, co-prosecutor for Knox and Sollecito

Manuela Comodi, co-prosecutor

Patrizia Stefanoni, forensic specialist

THE DEFENSE

Valter Biscotti, lawyer for Rudy Guede

Giulia Bongiorno, lead lawyer for Raffaele Sollecito

Carlo Dalla Vedova, lead lawyer for Amanda Knox

Luciano Ghirga, local lawyer for Amanda Knox

David Marriott, Knox family spokesman

THE FAMILIES

Curt Knox, Amanda’s father

Edda Mellas, Amanda’s mother

Chris Mellas, Amanda’s stepfather

Deanna Knox, Amanda’s sister

John Kercher, Meredith’s father

Arline Kercher, Meredith’s mother

Francesco Sollecito, Raffaele’s father

1

“Perugia Is Not for the Weak”

IT IS 2 A.M. on a sticky September night, and Perugia is a cauldron of illicit activity. A thick fog of marijuana hangs over the Piazza IV Novembre. Empty bottles and plastic cups litter the cobbled square. The periphery is lined with North African drug dealers, selling their wares like the fruit vendors who occupy this spot in daytime hours. A group of pretty young British students giggle, easy prey to the Italian guys pouring their drinks. The American girls are more aggressive, eager to nab an Italian lover. Down an alley, a young man has lifted the skirt of his conquest and is having clumsy sex with her under a streetlamp while her drink spills out of the plastic cup in her hand. Dozens of students are passed out on the steps of the church. There is not a cop in sight.

This is the scene that greets the study-abroad crowd when they enroll at Perugia’s universities for foreigners. It comes as a shock to some and an irresistible circus to others, and it was the backdrop for tragedy in the case of two young women, Amanda Marie Knox, then twenty, and Meredith Susana Cara Kercher, twenty-two, who arrived in the fall of 2007 and enthusiastically joined the party. Less than two months later, Meredith was dead, and Amanda was in prison, accused of her murder.

These young women were not exactly innocents abroad. They had both done their share of college partying before they arrived in Italy. But that was hardly preparation for the nonstop bacchanalia that has made Perugia infamous on the international student