Waiting to Be Heard

by Amanda Knox

  From the moment Meredith’s body was discovered, I’d been searching the police’s—­and then the guards’—­faces, silently pleading for reassurance that we were working together. But it was this nun with watery blue eyes, thinning gray eyebrows, and nearly translucent skin who gave me the strength to reconnect with myself.

  Argirò had said this seclusion was to protect me from other prisoners—­that it was standard procedure for ­people like me, ­people without a criminal record—­but they were doing more than just keeping me separate. In forbidding me from watching TV or reading, in prohibiting me from contacting the ­people I loved and needed most, in not offering me a lawyer, and in leaving me alone with nothing but my own jumbled thoughts, they were maintaining my ignorance and must have been trying to control me, to push me to reveal why or how Meredith had died.

  But I had nothing more to tell them. I was desolate. My scratchy wool blanket didn’t stop the November chill from seeping bone deep. I lay on my bed crying, trying to soothe myself by softly singing the Beatles song “Let It Be,” over and over.

  I sat up when Agente Lupa came by my cell with another agente to check on me. “Come stai?” she asked.

  I tried to answer, to say, “I’m okay,” but I couldn’t stop the surge of tears. Lupa asked her colleague to unlock the door and came inside. She squatted in front of me and took my cold hands in her large ones and rubbed them. “You have to stay strong,” she said. “Everything will be figured out soon.”

  Then she hugged me like a mother does her distraught five-­year-­old. I buried my face in her shoulder and, in an explosion of emotion, bawled, as loudly as if I were screaming. I so desperately needed my mom that I took comfort from a stranger.

  I ached to see my mother. A day had passed since she was supposed to have arrived, since I’d been out of contact. I could no longer fathom where she might be. I only knew that she must be trying to see me. She would get to me eventually. If only it had been sooner.

  Six days ago I believed that I could, and should, cope with Meredith’s murder by myself. But everything had broken down so quickly. I was sure that if I’d asked for Mom’s help sooner, I wouldn’t have felt so trapped and alone during my interrogation. I could have stopped it. If my mom, my lifeline, had been ready to jump to my defense on the other side of the door, I’d be staying with her now, not in prison by myself.

  Lupa held me until my crying grew weak. “Do you need anything?” she asked.

  “No,” I whimpered. “Thank you.”

  When Lupa had gone, I returned to my scribbled memories about the evening of the murder. At the questura, when the police demanded I give them an hour-­by-­hour accounting of what Raffaele and I had done that night, I couldn’t perfectly remember. We’d watched Amélie, eaten dinner, smoked pot, had sex, fallen asleep. But in what order? And what else? What had we talked about?

  And then, right after the nun had left, detail after detail suddenly came back to me.

  I read a chapter in Harry Potter.

  We watched a movie.

  We cooked dinner.

  We smoked a joint.

  Raffaele and I had sex.

  And then I went to sleep.

  What I’d said during my interrogation was wrong. I was never at the villa. I’d tried to believe what the police had said and had literally conjured that up. It wasn’t real. That’s not what happened. I hadn’t witnessed anything terrible after all. I thought, Oh, thank God! I felt such a massive wave of relief.

  I quickly wrote at the top of the page: “To the person who must know this.”

  Unlike my first memoriale, this one expressed less doubt and more certainty about where I’d been the night Meredith was killed. I rushed to get it down, so excited to finally be able to make sense of my memories for myself, and to be able to explain myself to the police. It read:

  Oh my God! I’m freaking out a bit now because I talked to a nun and I finally remember. It can’t be a coincidence. I remember what I was doing with Raffaele at the time of the murder of my friend! We are both innocent! This is why: After dinner Raffaele began washing the dishes in the kitchen and I was giving him a back massage while he was doing it. It’s something we do for one another when someone is cleaning dishes, because it makes cleaning better. I remember now that it was AFTER dinner that we smoked marijuana and while we smoked I began by saying that he shouldn’t worry about the sink. He was upset because the sink was broken but it was new and I told him to not worry about it because it was only a little bad thing that had happened, and that little bad things are nothing to worry about. We began to talk more about what kind of ­people we were. We talked about how I’m more easy-­going and less organized than he is, and how he is very organized because of the time he spent in Germany. It was during this conversation that Raffaele told me about his past. How he had a horrible experience with drugs and alcohol. He told me that he drove his friends to a concert and that they were using cocaine, marijuana, he was drinking rum, and how, after the concert, when he was driving his passed-­out friends home, how he had realized what a bad thing he had done and had decided to change. He told me about how in the past he dyed his hair yellow and another time when he was young had cut designs in his hair. He used to wear earrings. He did this because when he was young he played video games and watched Sailor Moon, a Japanese girl cartoon, and so he wasn’t a popular kid at school. ­People made fun of him. I told him about how in high school I had been unpopular as well, because the ­people in my school thought I was a lesbian. We talked about his friends, how they hadn’t changed from drug-­using video game players, and how he was sad for them. We talked about his mother, how she had died and how he felt guilty because he had left her alone before she died. He told me that before she died she told him she wanted to die because she was alone and had nothing to live for. I told Raffaele that wasn’t his fault that his mother was depressed and wanted to die. I told him he did the right thing by going to school. I told him that life is full of choices, and those choices aren’t necessarily between good and bad. There are options between what is best and what is not, and all we have to do is do what we think is best. I told him that mistakes teach us to be better ­people, and so he shouldn’t feel nervous about going to Milan to study, because he felt he needed to be nearer to his friends who hadn’t changed and he felt needed him. But I told him he had to be true to himself. It was a very long conversation but it did happen and it must have happened at the time of Meredith’s murder, so to clarify, this is what happened.

  Around five in the evening Raffaele and I returned to his place to get comfortable. I checked my email on his computer for a while and then afterward I read a little Harry Potter to him in German.

  We watched Amelie and afterward we kissed for a little while. I told him about how I really liked this movie and how my friends thought I was similar to Amelie because I’m a bit of a weirdo, in that I like random little things, like birds singing, and these little things make me happy. I don’t remember if we had sex.

  Raffaele made dinner and I watched him and we stayed together in the kitchen while dinner was cooking. After dinner Raffaele cleaned the dishes and this is when the pipes below came loose and flooded the kitchen floor with water. He was upset, but I told him we could clean it up tomorrow when I brought back a mop from my house. He put a few small towels over the water to soak up a little and then he threw them into the sink. I asked him what would make him feel better and he said he would like to smoke some hash.

  I received a message from my boss about how I didn’t have to come into work and I sent him a message back with the words: “Ci vediamo. Buona serata.”

  While Raffaele rolled the joint I laid in bed quietly watching him. He asked me what I was thinking about and I told him I thought we were very different kinds of ­people. And so our conversation began, which I have already written about.

  After our conversation I
know we stayed in bed together for a long time. We had sex and then afterward we played our game of looking at each other and making faces. After this period of time we fell asleep and I didn’t wake up until Friday morning.

  This is what happened and I could swear by it. I’m sorry I didn’t remember before and I’m sorry I said I could have been at the house when it happened. I said these things because I was confused and scared. I didn’t lie when I said I thought the killer was Patrick. I was very stressed at the time and I really did think he was the murderer. But now I remember that I can’t know who the murderer was because I didn’t return back to the house.

  I know the police will not be happy about this, but it’s the truth and I don’t know why my boyfriend told lies about me, but I think he is scared and doesn’t remember well either. But this is what it is, this is what I remember.

  I folded it up, gave it to the guard, and said, “I need this to go to the police.”

  I was a little girl again. I was doing what I’d done since I was seven years old, whenever I got into trouble with Mom. I’d sit with a Lion King notebook propped up against my knees, write out my explanation and apology, rip it out, fold it up, and then either hand it to Mom or, if I wasn’t brave enough, put it somewhere I knew she’d immediately find it. When I was older I had a small, old-­fashioned, beat-­up wooden desk with a matching chair and a drawerful of pens. I felt so much more articulate writing than speaking. When I talk, my thoughts rush together, and I say things that don’t always seem appropriate or make sense.

  Writing brings order to my thoughts.

  It always worked with my mom when I handed her my letter. She’d open it right away, while I stood by. She almost always cried when she read it. She’d hug me and say, “Thank you!” and assure me that everything was okay.

  That’s what I wanted to have happen now. Somehow the kindness from the nun and that embrace from Agente Lupa had encouraged me that it would.

  I believed it was only a matter of time before the police understood that I was trying to help them and I would be released. The guard would unlock the cell. Without leading me by the arm, she’d escort me to an office where I could reclaim my hiking boots, my cell phone, my life. I’d walk out and into my mom’s arms.

  I thought I’d made it clear that I couldn’t stand by what I’d said during my interrogation, that those words and my signature didn’t count. We would have to talk again. This time they would have to listen and not shout.

  I thought about what to do while I waited for my memoriale to get passed to the right readers and the paperwork to get filled in. Since I’d never been in a prison before—­and I’d never be here again—­I decided to record what I saw so I wouldn’t forget.

  I felt I had a duty to observe and collect information, just like a tourist who writes a travelogue or a war correspondent who witnesses devastation.

  I inspected the gray-­green paint on the walls, faded with age, and the splotches of white where the plaster was crumbling. A message had been left by a former occupant. Near the door, below eye level, in bright red lipstick, was an imprint of her puckered lips. Next to it, written in block letters, was a message: “libertà, si esce, esco presto”—­“FREEDOM, ONE LEAVES, I LEAVE SOON.”

  It was as though these words had been left for me. It was a message that added to my hope. I continued my inventory.

  The barred window, about three feet by four feet, was thankfully large enough to let in light and allow me to look out onto the world I thought I’d left behind only temporarily. I saw a row of cone-­shaped cypresses lined up on a hilltop. They reminded me of the trees Deanna and I saw two months ago, on the long, winding, and miscalculated hike from the Perugia train station—­back when I’d been so sure of myself and so excited to see how my Italian adventure would unfold.

  As I gathered this insider’s information, I felt more like an observer than a participant. I found that being watched by a guard every time I peed or showered or just lay on my bed seemed less offensive when I looked at it with an impersonal eye. I saw the absurdity in it and documented it in my head.

  But no matter how much I tried to distance myself from my physical surroundings, I was stuck with the anger and self-­doubt that were festering inside me. I was furious for putting myself in this situation, panicked that I’d steered the investigation off course by delaying the police’s search for the killer.

  I thought back to the night of my interrogation—­the police hovering over me, crowding in on me, pressing my cell phone in my face.

  I imagined what I should have said: “No! You’re wrong!”

  That’s what ­people believe they would have done in my place. They’re certain they’d have held to the truth whatever the cost. They’re certain they wouldn’t have broken down and not known what the truth was anymore. That is what I would have imagined for myself: I would not have crumbled.

  Chapter 14

  November 8–9, 2007

  Two nights passed with the metal door shut over my bars—­an impenetrable shield that locked me inside alone. In the morning, when the guard opened it, nothing had changed. I was still in isolation.

  I drank the coffee in the mornings, but barely touched the food that came around on a cart twice a day, delivered by a woman in a white apron and a net bonnet. It later turned out that she was an employed prisoner, but then I thought she must be from the outside. I kept trying to elicit a sympathetic look—­to make a connection, however slight. But I got the same mechanical stare that I was getting used to seeing on almost everyone.

  In the middle of my second full day as a prisoner, two agenti led me out of my cell, downstairs, outside, across the prison compound, and into the center building where I’d had my mug shot taken and my passport confiscated. There, in an empty office converted into a mini courtroom, seven ­people were waiting silently for me when I walked into the room, including two men, who stood as I entered.

  Speaking in English, the taller, younger man, with spiky gray hair, said, “I’m Carlo Dalla Vedova. I’m from Rome.” He gestured toward a heavier-­set man with smooth white hair. “This is Luciano Ghirga, from Perugia.” Each man was dressed in a crisp suit. “We’re your lawyers. Your family hired us. The American embassy gave him our names. Please, sit in this chair. And don’t say anything.”

  I was so grateful for my family’s help. Finally I had allies, ­people to get me out of this unbearable situation.

  Also in the room were three women. The one in black robes was Judge Claudia Matteini. Her secretary, seated next to her, announced, “Please stand.”

  In an emotionless monotone, the judge read, “You, Amanda Marie Knox, born 9 July 1987 in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., are formally under investigation for the murder of Meredith Kercher. How do you respond? You have the right to remain silent.”

  I was stunned. My lower jaw plummeted. My legs trembled. I swung my face to the left to look at the only ­people I recognized in the room—­Monica Napoleoni, the black-­haired, taloned homicide chief; a male officer from my interrogation; and Pubblico Ministero Giuliano Mignini, the prosecutor, who I still thought was the mayor. Napoleoni was resting her chin on her hand glowering at me, studying my reaction. She seemed to be enjoying this.

  Until the judge spoke, I had had no idea that I was being accused of murder.

  I felt as though I’d been ambushed.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” the judge asked.

  I turned to look at my lawyers. Carlo touched my hand and said, “Don’t say anything now. We need to talk first.”

  There hadn’t been enough time between their hiring and this preliminary hearing for Carlo and Luciano to meet with me. But more time might not have made a difference. It turned out that, mysteriously, Mignini had barred Raffaele’s lawyers from seeing him before his hearing. Would the prosecutor have treated me the same? I think so. I can’t be certain wh
o ordered that I be put in isolation and not allowed to watch TV or to read, to cut me off from news from the outside world. But I believe that the police and prosecution purposely kept me uninformed so I would arrive at my first hearing totally unprepared to defend myself.

  I do know this: if I’d met with my lawyers, I could have explained that I was innocent, that I knew nothing about the murder, that I imagined things during my interrogation that weren’t true. The only thing my lawyers knew about me was that when I talked I got myself in trouble. I understand their impulse to keep me silent then, but in the end, my silence harmed me as much as anything I’d previously said.

  When the judge asked if I had anything to say, I said no.

  And with that one word I gave up my only chance to stand up for myself, my only chance to tell the truth.

  I turned to my lawyers. “Please,” I whispered urgently, “I have to explain.”

  “No, no, not right now,” they said. “Don’t say anything.”

  The whole hearing took less than ten minutes.

  Just before I was taken back to my cell, Carlo said, “We’ll come see you as soon as we can. And we’re trying to work it out so that your mother can visit you.”

  Agenti led me back to the female prison. With each door that locked behind me I felt as if I were walking into a series of shrinking cages. I was trapped. Once I was in the smallest cage, my cell, I wailed.

  It would be a long time before my Italian would be good enough to read Judge Matteini’s nineteen-­page report, which came out, and was leaked to the press, the next day. But my lawyers told me the gist of it. The judge said, “There were no doubts” that Patrick, Raffaele, and I were involved. Our motive, according to her, was that Raffaele and I wanted “to try a new sensation,” while Patrick wanted to have sex with Meredith. When she refused, the three of us tried “to force her will,” using Raffaele’s pocketknife.