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Bongiorno physically distanced herself from Knox’s lawyers at early press conferences and often back-handed Amanda, telling reporters that the evidence against Raffaele was minute in comparison with that against Amanda and Rudy. Raffaele’s father, too, rued the day his son met Amanda and told reporters privately that he thought Raffaele should have a separate trial. After all, the only forensic evidence linking Raffaele to the crime was proving easy to discount. The knife from his apartment was already discredited before the trial began because of the single testing of the DNA. More troublesome was Raffaele’s DNA on the clasp of Meredith’s bloody bra. But the clasp had been kicked around her room for six weeks, so this match could be challenged, too. Moreover, Bongiorno surely knew that an Italian jury would have been more sympathetic to her client if he severed ties with Amanda—she could present him as the sexual naïf who was bewitched by this American siren and did whatever she told him—even lie. Because, of course, one of the biggest pitfalls for the defense was that Raf and Amanda had contradictory alibis. That is essentially why, although Raf gave several spontaneous statements, he never took the stand to face cross-examination.

But Bongiorno is a strategist, not a risk taker. She also knew that if she turned against Amanda, the scene could get very ugly very quickly, starting with revelations about Raffaele’s serious drug problems and his strange obsession with knives. Plus, no matter how tainted it might be, his DNA was in the room where the murder took place; Amanda’s was not. In the end, Bongiorno knew that in order to save Raffaele, she had to also save Amanda—something Amanda’s lawyers were not exactly accomplishing on their own.

And so Bongiorno used her closing arguments on Raf’s behalf to give Amanda one of the biggest boosts of the trial, describing the pretty American as a simple young woman who could not possibly have master-minded such an attack. Referring back to the French art film Amélie that the two suspects supposedly watched at Raf’s apartment the night of the murder, Bongiorno described Amanda as extravagant and unusual. “She is a little bizarre and naïve,” Bongiorno told the court. “But she is not Amanda the ripper, she is the Amélie of Seattle.” It could have been a turning point in the trial—suddenly, someone other than her family was sticking up for Amanda. But it came too late.

Amanda’s own lawyers were less effective. Carlo Dalla Vedova, brought in by the family from Rome because he was fluent in English, had never tried a criminal case. His law practice serves Rome’s power brokers—the United Nations, the Saudis, various business entities—and he is often spotted in hotel lobbies along the via Veneto closing deals. Amanda’s other attorney was Luciano Ghirga, a former soccer star gone soft. Ghirga’s white hair and provincial charm make him lovable. He is the typical country lawyer who knows the deepest secrets about everyone in Perugia. Ghirga had experience with criminal cases, and he knew that the most skeptical journalists were the ones he needed to court. The Knox family had the opposite view and directed him never to speak to the colpe-volisti reporters. But he brushed off the Knoxes with a shrug of the shoulder and bought us more wine and dinners than all the other lawyers combined. He was a charmer, with a formidable crush on Andrea Vogt, which we leveraged for inside details about the case. At times, Ghirga and Dalla Vedova weren’t even on speaking terms, and more than once, I walked into the Turreno café to find them in a heated debate. If Ghirga—a Perugia insider—had been the lead lawyer, the case may have gone differently. But he was sidelined by the flashier Dalla Vedova, whom the family trusted infinitely more, if only because they could actually speak with him. Yet at times it became apparent that Dalla Vedova exploited the language barrier to shield Amanda’s parents from troubling evidence.

“Carlo says there is no mixed blood evidence,”