The Murder of Meredith Kercher (13 page)

T
he trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito finally began on Friday, January 16, 2009 before presiding Judge Giancarlo Massei. As had been the case during earlier proceedings, most, if not all, trial days would occur on Fridays and Saturdays. When Amanda Knox entered the packed courtroom she was all smiles as she made her way through a gauntlet of people towards the defence table. Her attorney, Luciano Ghirga, gave her a pat on the back as she walked past him.

Before the proceedings officially commenced, a number of journalists, upset over the cramped conditions in the courtroom and the fact that their view was obscured by TV cameras, staged a protest by entering barred cages normally reserved for Mafia suspects or terrorists. They were eventually instructed to take their places.

The eight-member jury consisted of two judges plus three women and three men, and was sworn in by Judge Massei, as Amanda smiled, and sometimes smirked, from her place at the defence table. Raffaele pointedly never exchanged glances with Amanda from his place in the courtroom, but Amanda frequently looked at him and smiled.

Judge Massei ruled against Maresca’s motion to keep the proceedings closed for the sake of the Kercher family, but reserved the right to exclude reporters and photographers when necessary. Major trials are typically televised in Italy, but Massei sided with the prosecution argument that cameras in court could potentially capture shots of photos of Meredith’s body from evidence being presented and ruled that television and press cameras would not be allowed after the start of the proceedings – they could be there to capture the preliminary ‘housework’, but not after the trial got under way. Massei indicated such measures were necessary to protect Meredith’s dignity and memory.

Amanda and Raffaele were each charged with sexual assault, which carries a sentence of 6-12 years; theft, 1-6 years; simulation of a crime, 1-3 years; possession of a weapon, up to 1 year; and murder with cruelty, a life sentence. Amanda was also charged with slander for accusing the police of striking her, as well as saying they physically and psychologically intimidated her during the interrogation. Police had
testified that no one had harmed her while in police custody. Her so-called confession about her presence at the crime scene at the time of the murder had been declared inadmissible because, the court ruled, she did not have a lawyer present during questioning.

In early February 2009, during the first day that evidence was presented, Raffaele looked nervous at times and Amanda seemed intent on chewing her fingernails as the court was told that the couple looked ‘embarrassed and surprised’ when the first officers arrived at the murder scene, after Meredith’s mobile phone had been found in a neighbour’s garden. Inspector Michele Battistelli said: ‘They were whispering to each other and told me they were waiting for the Carabinieri. They didn’t say when they had called them, just that they were waiting for them. They told me that they had come back to the house and found the front door open and the window of one of the flatmates, Filomena Romanelli, smashed.’

Battistelli added that he went inside with Amanda and Raffaele, and they showed him the broken window and the ransacked room with clothes strewn about on the floor. He said that he noted that the glass was lying on top of the clothing articles, which suggested to him that the window had been broken after the clothes had been tossed about on the floor.

‘I immediately thought that this had been an attempt to make it look like a break-in,’ he said. ‘I told the two accused this but they didn’t answer me. I also
noticed that there was a laptop on the bedroom table and a camera in the kitchen, items that would have been taken during a break-in.’

He then decided to break down the door to Meredith’s room.

‘At this time Knox and Sollecito were not here,’ he said. ‘They were away from the scene. Romanelli’s boyfriend gave the door three kicks and it opened. I was behind him and heard a scream. I looked and when I saw the scene I told everyone to get out. There was blood everywhere, a lot, but I did not go in. I then called the operations room.’

Battistelli said that he had ‘some idea’ of how Meredith had died from what he had quickly observed – he said that he had seen marks on her neck as well as the blood. He said that he did not speak to anyone about it, prompting prosecutors to point out that when Amanda was at the police station waiting to be questioned she had spoken about the injuries to Meredith’s body which, Mignini said, ‘only the killers would know about.’

The court also heard testimony from Filomena Romanelli that neither Raffaele nor Amanda had shed a tear when Meredith’s body was discovered, while most of the others present at the scene did. She also recalled for the court how Amanda had telephoned her earlier that morning to say, ‘There’s something strange in the house. The door is open and there’s some blood.’

Robyn Butterworth also testified, and said that Amanda’s behaviour that day at the cottage had been ‘very strange’.

‘Everybody was really upset but she didn’t seem to show any emotion about what had happened or any thought for anyone else who was there,’ Butterworth said. She went on to describe how Amanda had sat with her feet on Raffaele’s lap, and had considered their behaviour ‘upsetting’ considering the circumstances.

‘They were kissing and joking together,’ Butterworth said. ‘I remember Amanda sticking her tongue out at Raffaele.’ Butterworth also testified that when one of their other friends had said she hoped that Meredith had not suffered, Amanda responded with, ‘What do you think? She fucking bled to death.’

On Wednesday, February 18, while the trial was in recess during one of its many ‘off’ days, police in Perugia made a startling discovery that quickly made news, first throughout Italy and then across the world. They had discovered that the house in which Meredith Kercher had been sexually assaulted and murdered more than a year earlier had been broken into and ransacked, presumably by devil worshippers, despite the best efforts to keep the house sealed off as a crime scene. The house and its perimeter had been marked with police tape ever since the murder, but sentries were no longer guarding it as of January 2009. Since
the house had been left unguarded, police were uncertain as to when the break-in actually occurred. The intrusion, police said, had been discovered when officers returned some items to the house that had been seized earlier as part of the investigation into Meredith’s murder.

With satanic worship apparently somewhat widespread in Italy over the past several years, murder scenes are often used to carry out unholy ceremonies. Some people believed that because there had been a great deal of blood at the crime scene, coupled with the fact that Meredith’s body had been partially nude, these factors may have contributed to the house having possibly been selected by Satanists for their rituals.

Among the oddities discovered by investigators following up on the break-in were four knives on the kitchen floor, as well as a burned out candle in another room and candle wax drippings in the room where Meredith was slain. Nothing appeared to be missing from the house. According to police, the intruders’ point of entry was through a kitchen window at the rear of the house.

‘Four knives were found at the scene, and they were all determined to be from inside the house,’ said a spokesperson for the police. ‘They were not brought here. A candle was also found, but this also appears to have already been in the house. Traces of wax were found in Meredith’s bedroom and at this stage we are keeping an open mind on the motive. We cannot
exclude anything, and it is possible that it was for some unnatural reason, such as Satanism.’

‘I have no words to describe how much distress this will cause the family,’ Maresco said. ‘I hope that the full details about what happened will come out quickly.’

Marco Brusco, Raffaele’s attorney, viewed the break-in as possibly being beneficial to his client’s case. ‘This break-in just shows what we have always said – anyone could get into the house,’ Brusco said. ‘It proves how easy it is to get into the house and tamper with the crime scene… we are very concerned about what happened, but at the same time it proves what we have always said – that a thief broke into the house and murdered poor Meredith Kercher.’

To date, the mysterious break-in, amid suspicions of satanic activity, remains a mystery.

As the trial continued and February drew to a close, testimony was given by Monica Napoleone, head of Perugia’s homicide squad, who described a woman’s shoe print found on a pillow beneath Meredith’s body. Because the size of the shoe print, between size 36 to 38, was compatible with Amanda’s shoe size, 37, it had been viewed as suspicious but had not yet been matched to any specific shoe belonging to Amanda.

Napoleone also described Amanda’s behaviour that day at the police station, and characterized it as unusual. She said at one point Amanda had complained about being tired, and Napoleone told her that she could leave.

‘She said she wanted to stay,’ Napoleone said. ‘Sollecito was also at the police station at the time and she said she wanted to wait for him. A few minutes later I walked past a room at the police station where she was waiting and I saw Amanda doing the splits and a cartwheel… she and Sollecito had a bizarre attitude throughout the whole time. They were laughing, kissing and pulling faces at each other… the flatmates and the British friends were very upset but Knox and Sollecito seemed to be more interested in each other. They were very indifferent to the situation and I found it quite disturbing, considering that the body of a young girl had been found in such terrible circumstances.’

In response to questions about Amanda’s accusations of police brutality and statements that she had not been treated well by the police, Napoleone responded that she had been treated ‘very well’.

‘She was given water, chamomile tea and breakfast as well, and she was given cakes from a vending machine and then taken to the canteen at the police station for something to eat,’ Napoleone testified.

Police officer Giacinto Profazio told the court that he, too, had observed a ‘strange attitude’ with Amanda and Raffaele. He said that Amanda had sat on Raffaele’s knee at the police station, and that he had told both of them what he thought of their behaviour.

‘She was in a room at the police station sitting on his knee,’ Profazio testified. ‘I told them it was not appropriate. I was also told that she did the splits and
cartwheels in one of the rooms at the station. Then after being questioned, she burst into tears.’

Profazio also testified about being told that the broken window at the house may have been used by an intruder to gain entry, and shared his thoughts about such a scenario with the jury.

‘I thought it strange,’ Profazio said, ‘as it would have needed a superhuman effort to climb up to it. There was a much easier way in at the back, via a terrace and a boiler. There was a chair and table on the terrace and it would have been a lot easier to get in this way.’

Profazio also took the judge and jury through much of the other evidence, including DNA, the knife, the fact that Amanda and Raffaele’s mobile phones had been turned off at practically the same time the night of the murder, and so forth.

In March, the jurors heard testimony about how Amanda and Meredith had been involved in a row over money, and they were shown CCTV footage from the nearby car park the night Meredith was killed in a series of black-and-white photographs depicting a female figure with long hair, believed to have been Meredith, walking down the slope towards the cottage. The time stamp on the footage indicated that it had been at 8.41 p.m., according to testimony by police inspector Mauro Barbadori.

‘From the time on the film and the fact it is a female figure, the belief is that it is Meredith, but it is very
poor quality and we cannot say for definite,’ Barbadori said. ‘Hypothetically speaking it is very possible that the figure seen is Meredith returning home after spending the evening at a friend’s house.’

After hearing from the witness who reported seeing Amanda out shopping for cleaning products when she had claimed to be in bed, another witness, Nara Capezzali, 68, testified about hearing a terrifying scream that came from the house where Meredith was killed.

‘I went to bed around 9-9.30 p.m. as there was nothing on the TV and I woke up around two hours later to go to the bathroom,’ Capezzali said. ‘On my way I passed by the window and heard a scream, not a normal scream but a prolonged scream. It made my skin crawl. I didn’t know what was happening. I looked out the window but didn’t see anything. Then a few minutes later I heard running on the metal staircase [near the street] and then running through the leaves going in the other direction. It was at least two people. The scream left me really disturbed, and even now it troubles me. It was a woman’s scream – there was no call for help, it was a scream and then nothing.’

Capezzali then demonstrated the scream she heard for the court’s benefit.

Other witnesses gave testimony to having seen both Amanda and Raffaele together that night, outside the crime scene. At another point, when photos of Meredith’s injuries were shown, Amanda averted and
shielded her eyes, unable to look at the images. The court was also told that an attempt had been made to strangle Meredith before she was fatally stabbed in the throat with two different knives.

On Friday, June 6, Meredith Kercher’s family returned to Perugia to attend the trial. Her mother, Arline, fighting back tears, told the court that she would never get over the ‘brutality’ of her daughter’s death and said that she desperately missed Meredith, who she described as ‘conscientious’. When she spoke it was often between taking deep breaths, an attempt to keep from crying.

‘Her death was unbelievable, unreal,’ she said. ‘In many ways, it still is. I still look for her. It’s not just her death but it is the nature of it, the brutality of it, the violence of it and the great sorrow it’s brought everyone. It is such a shock to send your child to school and for them to not come back. We will never, never get over it.’