Waiting to Be Heard

by Amanda Knox

  That’s when Ficarra slapped me on my head.

  “Why are you hitting me?” I cried.

  “To get your attention,” she said.

  “I’m trying to help,” I said. “I’m trying to help, I’m desperately trying to help.”

  The pressure was greater than just being closed in a room. It was about being yelled at relentlessly by ­people I trusted completely, by ­people I’d been taught to respect. Everything felt bigger, more overwhelming, more suffocating, than it was because these were ­people whom I thought I was helping and they didn’t believe me; they kept telling me I was wrong.

  They told me I’d been to our house, that they had evidence to prove it. They told me I’d left Raffaele’s. Raffaele himself had said so. They told me I’d been traumatized and had amnesia. I hadn’t slept in days. They wouldn’t let me leave the room or give me a moment to think. Nothing had substance. Nothing seemed real. I believed them. Their version of reality was taking over. I felt confused, frantic, and there was no escape.

  ­People were shouting at me. “Maybe you just don’t remember what happened. Try to think. Try to think. Who did you meet? Who did you meet? You need to help us. Tell us!”

  A cop boomed, “You’re going to go to prison for thirty years if you don’t help us.”

  The threat hung in the air. I was feeling smaller and smaller, more and more helpless. It was the middle of the night. I was terrified, and I couldn’t understand what was happening. I thought they had to be pressuring me for a reason. They had to be telling me the truth. Raffaele had to be telling the truth. I didn’t trust my own mind anymore. I believed the police. I could no longer distinguish what was real from what wasn’t. I had a moment when I thought I was remembering.

  The silver-­haired police officer took both of my hands in his. He said, “I really want to help you. I want to save you, but you need to tell me who the murderer is. You need to tell me. You know who the murderer is. You know who killed Meredith.”

  In that instant, I snapped.

  I truly thought I remembered having met somebody. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I didn’t understand that I was about to implicate the wrong person. I didn’t understand what was at stake. I didn’t think I was making it up. My mind put together incoherent images. The image that came to me was Patrick’s face.

  I gasped. I said his name. “Patrick—­it’s Patrick.”

  I started sobbing uncontrollably. They said, “Who’s Patrick? Where is he? Where is he?”

  I said, “He’s my boss.”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I don’t know—­at the basketball court.”

  “Why did he kill her? Why did he kill her?”

  I said, “I don’t know.”

  “Did he have sex with Meredith? Did he go into the room with Meredith?”

  “I don’t know, I guess so. I’m confused.”

  They started treating me like someone who’d been taken advantage of. They told me they were helping me, that they were trying to get to the truth. “We’re trying to do our best for you.”

  They were softer, but I was no longer sure of anything—­of what was real, of what I feared, of what I imagined.

  I wept for a long time.

  At 1:45 A.M. they gave me a piece of paper written in Italian and told me to sign it.

  On Thursday, November 1, on a day when I normally work, while I was at my boyfriend Raffaele’s place, at about 20:30, I received a message on my cell phone from Patrik, who told me the club would remain closed that night because there weren’t any customers and therefore I would not have to go to work.

  I replied to the message telling him that we’d see each other right away. Then I left the house, saying to my boyfriend that I had to go to work. Given that during the afternoon with Raffaele I had smoked a joint, I felt confused because I do not make frequent use of drugs that strong.

  I met Patrick immediately at the basketball court in Piazza Grimana and we went to the house together. I do not remember if Meredith was there or came shortly afterward. I have a hard time remembering those moments but Patrick had sex with Meredith, with whom he was infatuated, but I cannot remember clearly whether he threatened Meredith first. I remember confusedly that he killed her.

  As soon as I signed it, they whooped and high-­fived each other.

  Then, a few minutes later, they demanded my sneakers. As soon as I took them off, someone left the room with them.

  Eventually they told me the pubblico ministero would be coming in. I didn’t know this translated as prosecutor, or that this was the magistrate that Rita Ficarra had been referring to a few days earlier when she said they’d have to wait to see what he said, to see if I could go to Germany. I thought the “public minister” was the mayor or someone in a similarly high “public” position in the town and that somehow he would help me.

  They said, “You need to talk to the pubblico ministero about what you remember.”

  I told them, “I don’t feel like this is remembering. I’m really confused right now.” I even told them, “I don’t remember this. I can imagine this happening, and I’m not sure if it’s a memory or if I’m making this up, but this is what’s coming to mind and I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  They said, “Your memories will come back. It’s the truth. Just wait and your memories will come back.”

  The pubblico ministero came in.

  Before he started questioning me, I said, “Look, I’m really confused, and I don’t know what I’m remembering, and it doesn’t seem right.”

  One of the other police officers said, “We’ll work through it.”

  Despite the emotional sieve I’d just been squeezed through, it occurred to me that I was a witness and this was official testimony, that maybe I should have a lawyer. “Do I need a lawyer?” I asked.

  He said, “No, no, that will only make it worse. It will make it seem like you don’t want to help us.”

  It was a much more solemn, official affair than my earlier questioning had been, though the pubblico ministero was asking me the same questions as before: “What happened? What did you see?”

  I said, “I didn’t see anything.”

  “What do you mean you didn’t see anything? When did you meet him?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “I think by the basketball court.” I had imagined the basketball court in Piazza Grimana, just across the street from the University for Foreigners.

  “I have an image of the basketball court in Piazza Grimana near my house.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was he wearing a jacket?”

  “I think so.”

  “What color was it?”

  “I think it was brown.”

  “What did he do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “I’m confused!”

  “Are you scared of him?”

  “I guess.”

  I felt as if I were almost in a trance. The pubblico ministero led me through the scenario, and I meekly agreed to his suggestions.

  “This is what happened, right? You met him?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Where did you meet?”

  “I don’t know. I guess at the basketball court.”

  “You went to the house?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Was Meredith in the house?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Did Patrick go in there?”

  “I don’t know, I guess so.”

  “Where were you?”

 
“I don’t know. I guess in the kitchen.”

  “Did you hear Meredith screaming?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How could you not hear Meredith screaming?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I covered my ears. I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m just imagining this. I’m trying to remember, and you’re telling me I need to remember, but I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right.”

  He said, “No, remember. Remember what happened.”

  “I don’t know.”

  At that moment, with the pubblico ministero raining questions down on me, I covered my ears so I could drown him out.

  He said, “Did you hear her scream?”

  I said, “I think so.”

  My account was written up in Italian and he said, “This is what we wrote down. Sign it.”

  I want to voluntarily report what happened because I’m deeply disturbed and very frightened of Patrick, the African owner of the pub called “Le Chic” on Alessi Street where I work occasionally. I met him on November 1 at night after I sent a reply to his message with the words “see you later.” We soon met about 9 pm at the basketball court in Piazza Grimana. We went to my house on Via della Pergola No. 7. I cannot remember exactly if my friend Meredith was already in the house or if she came after, but I can say that she disappeared into her bedroom with Patrick while I think I stayed in the kitchen. I can’t remember how long they were in her bedroom but at one point I heard Meredith screaming and I was scared and covered my ears. I do not remember anything after that. I have a lot of confusion in my head. I do not remember if Meredith screamed or if I heard any thuds because I was in shock, but I could imagine what was going on.

  After I signed it, everyone mercifully stopped questioning me, but my mind wouldn’t rest. Something didn’t feel right. It didn’t seem as though I had actually remembered what I said I had. It seemed made up.

  In my dull state I thought everything would eventually be okay. I thought I could communicate with ­people on the outside. My mother was coming that day, and she’d help me figure things out.

  I had no more than a shred of memory, but it seemed to hold the truth. I was so afraid of the police, so afraid of sending them in the wrong direction for the wrong person. What if I’ve told them wrong? What if I don’t have amnesia?

  And what about the “spontaneous declarations,” as the police called what I’d signed? These documents didn’t take into account that I kept yelling, “I don’t know.” They didn’t say that the police threatened me and yelled at me. None of that is there.

  The declarations were in the detectives’ words. But now their words were mine, and this shaped everything that followed.

  Chapter 11

  Morning, November 6, 2007, Day Five

  I signed my second “spontaneous declaration” at 5:45 A.M., just as the darkness was beginning to soften outside the small window on the far side of the interrogation room. That was also true on the inside. As soon as I finished crossing the x in “Knox,” the agonizing torment ended.

  The room emptied in a rush. Except for Rita Ficarra, who sat at the wooden desk where she’d been all night, I was alone in the predawn hush.

  Just a few more hours and I’ll see Mom, I thought. We’ll spend the night in a hotel.

  I asked permission to push two metal folding chairs together, balled myself into the fetal position, and passed out, spent. I probably didn’t sleep longer than an hour before doubt pricked me awake. Oh my God, what if I sent the police in the wrong direction? They’ll be looking for the wrong person while the real killer escapes. I sat up crying, straining to remember what had happened on the night of Meredith’s murder. Had I really met Patrick? Had I even been at the villa? Did I make all that up? I was too exhausted, too rattled, to think clearly. I was gripped by uncertainty about what I’d said to the police and the pubblico ministero. I tried to get Ficarra’s attention. “Um, scusi,” I murmured tentatively. “I’m not sure what I told you is right.”

  “The memories will come back with time,” Ficarra answered mechanically, barely raising her eyes to look at me. “You have to think hard.”

  It seemed impossible that I could forget seeing a murder. Still, without feeling sure, I thought I should believe her.

  I tried to weave the images that had flashed in my mind the night before into a coherent sequence. But my memories—­of Patrick, the villa, Meredith’s screams—­were disjointed, like pieces of different jigsaw puzzles that had ended up in the same box by mistake. They weren’t ever meant to fit together. I’d walked by the basketball court near the villa every day. I’d said, “It was Patrick,” because I saw his face. I imagined him in his brown jacket because that’s what he usually wore. The more I realized how fragmented these images were, the closer I came to understanding that they weren’t actual memories.

  Suddenly my cell phone, which had been lying on the desk since it was waved in my face, lit up and started ringing. Ficarra ignored this. “Can I please answer it?” I begged. “I’m sure it’s my mom; I’m supposed to meet her at the train station. She’ll freak out if I don’t answer.”

  “No,” Ficarra said. “You cannot have your phone back. Your phone is evidence.”

  This moment exemplified how the line between Before and After was marked. I’d stopped being in charge of my life.

  For the next half hour my phone rang every few minutes, stopping only while the calls were sent to voice mail. The noise ripped at me, and I began to panic, my body shook. Mom would be sick with worry, wondering what had happened to me, where I was, why I wasn’t answering. As a teenager, if I was late checking in, she’d keep trying me until I’d finally pick up, almost always to hear her crying on the other end of the line. I couldn’t stand that I was putting her through that now. And now, more than ever, I needed her.

  Still, it was a huge relief to know that later, if I had to come back to the questura, my mom would come with me. If they didn’t need me, I planned to introduce her to Laura and Filomena—­and maybe to Meredith’s parents, when they arrived.

  Finally my phone went silent. I slumped down in the folding chair, as mute as my cell phone.

  I was waiting for the police to tell me what they wanted from me next. That had been the pattern at the questura for the past four days. There would be a lull, and then they would either question me again or send me home. I willed it to be the latter. I couldn’t bear for them to yell at me again.

  Around 2 P.M. on Tuesday—­it was still the same day, although it felt as if it should be two weeks later—­Ficarra took me to the cafeteria. I was starving. After the interrogation was over they brought me a cup of tea, but this was the first food or drink I’d been offered since Raffaele and I had arrived at the questura around 10:30 P.M. Monday. With my sneakers confiscated, I trailed her down the stairs wearing only my socks. She turned and said, “Sorry I hit you. I was just trying to help you remember the truth.”

  I was still too confused to know what the truth was.

  I tried to say, “I hope that once this gets sorted out you’ll see I’m on your side.” But the way my Italian came out was “I hope you can see I’m your friend.”

  I was desperate for a sign that everything was okay between us, to be reassured that they still trusted me. I told myself they’d bullied me because they were so stressed, determined to figure out who’d killed Meredith. I had the same feelings. But in rethinking the night, I decided that the police thought I’d been hiding facts from them, that I’d lied. That’s why they were angry with me.

  I didn’t want them to think I was a bad person. I wanted them to see me as I was—­as Amanda Knox, who loved her parents, who did well in school, who respected authority, and whose only brush with the law had been a ticket for violating a noise ordinance during a college party I’d thrown with my housemates in Seattle. I wanted to help the police track down the person who’d
murdered my friend.

  What I did not know was that the police and I had very different ideas about where I stood. I saw myself as being helpful, someone who, having lived with Meredith, could answer the detectives’ questions. I would do that as long as they wanted. But the police saw me as a killer without a conscience. It would be a long time before I figured out that our presumptions were exactly the opposite of each other’s.

  By the time Ficarra and I got to the cafeteria, lunch was nearly over. I asked for an espresso, and the barista scavenged a few slices of salami and a piece of bread from the slim sandwich makings that were left. When we went back upstairs, a police officer handed me my hiking boots. Someone at the questura had gone back to the villa to get them. I’m sure they’d used it as an opportunity to comb through my stuff. Still, I was a lot more worried about what was in my head than on my feet. What had come over me? Why was I so confused? Why had I made those statements, which now seemed less and less like the truth?

  I repeated to Ficarra the same things I’d said earlier. “What I described last night doesn’t seem like memories. I feel like I imagined the events.”

  “No, your memories will come back, you’ll see,” she insisted.

  “You don’t understand,” I protested. “The more I’m remembering, the more I think that what I told you was wrong.”

  I was sure she was dismissing me because I couldn’t explain myself well in Italian. I didn’t know that it was because she had other plans for me, that our discussion had ended.

  “We need to take you into custody,” she said. “Just for a ­couple of days—­for bureaucratic reasons.”

  Custody? What does that mean? Are they taking me to a safe house? The silver-­haired cop had told me during my interrogation that they would protect me if I cooperated, if I told them who the murderer was. Will my mom be there with me? Can I call her?

  What does “bureaucratic reasons” mean? Does it mean they’re just processing my paperwork, my spontaneous declarations?

  I had so many questions that I didn’t ask aloud. But my main thought was If I’m going into hiding, I need to make sure the police understand that I’m not sure about Patrick. I’d caved under the police’s questioning. It was my lack of resolve that had created this problem, and I had to fix it.