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to keep prosecuting Amanda and Raf.) Egan also dredged up the dead issue of Mignini’s obsession with Satanism, even though that angle was never introduced in court. Egan’s piece was widely picked up across Italy, where he was criticized for his pious, uninformed views. The New York Times regular Rome-based correspondent, Rachel Donadio, made it to only a few hearings over the course of the trial. But when she came, she was greeted with great hostility in Perugia, despite her efforts to report accurately on the proceedings, in blatant contradiction to Egan’s blogs.

THE VERDICT CAME DOWN after midnight on December 5, 2009. The local police had grossly underestimated the number of reporters on the scene and ended up herding us forcibly—and painfully—through the narrow wooden doors into the courthouse. The cameras were relegated to the press room; print press were allowed in court after showing the police officers that our cell phones were turned off so there would be no rogue photos when the verdict was read. Curt, Edda, Chris, and Cassandra and all their daughters were there. So were Raffaele’s father, stepmother, and sister. As at a wedding, the innocentisti press stood behind Amanda’s family. I stood behind Meredith’s—Arline, John, and their other children, Stephanie, John Jr., and Lyle, who sat with a representative from the British Embassy. When Amanda walked in for the last time, there were no cameras to snap her picture. No one yelled questions. The judge and jury came in solemnly. Two of the women jurors were crying. It was well understood by then what the judge would say. He took a deep breath before he read the word “condannato” for Amanda Marie Knox. Both she and Raffaele were convicted of the crimes of sexual assault, murder, and staging a crime scene; Amanda was additionally convicted of defaming Patrick Lumumba. Amanda began to weep. Her family did not understand the Italian statement, and only when they saw Amanda react did their worst fears come true. Deanna’s cries filled the courtroom. Edda wept in silence. Curt’s anger was palpable. Chris seemed oblivious. Raffaele’s father shook his head, tears streaming down his face. His stepmother yelled out “Fuck you!” and then “Be strong, Raffaele” into the courtroom. Arline Kercher turned her whole body to stare at Edda Mellas; John put his hand on her shoulder. Raffaele began to shake as he cried. Amanda wept in Luciano Ghirga’s arms before the guards took her away. There were no hugs in the dungeon, and this time, the two convicted killers rode back to prison in separate vans.

Then no one knew quite what to do. David Marriott had not bothered coming to Perugia, and his clients were left to fight their way through the media scrum unprotected. Edda and Deanna escaped quickly and ran down the street to a waiting car that whisked them to the Brufani hotel. Curt clung to Ashley and Delaney, pushing away cameramen as he tried to leave the building. When Curt and his two daughters finally made it out of the old wooden doors, they heard the cries “Assassins, assassins” as the two paddy wagons drove past the front of the courthouse, blue lights flashing into the night. Then, in a surreal moment, Curt, Ashley, and Delaney marched, heads high, down the corso Vannuci to the Brufani hotel, a crush of cameras following them like the tail of a kite. Documentary filmmaker Garfield Kennedy was in front of Curt, shooting back toward the crowd, getting the shot he was waiting for. Safely inside the Brufani, the family regrouped in their network-funded suites and sat for interviews with the favored correspondents.

Back in United States, there was an intemperate, jingoistic burst of outrage from the people who knew about the trial only through Knox-approved dispatches. Journalist Judy Bachrach, who had traveled to Perugia for Vanity Fair for a preliminary hearing, which had been closed to the press, described the case against Knox as “a magic show filled with testimony about Amanda’s vibrator and condoms, and empty of proof” even though she never attended the actual trial. Seattle