by Amanda Knox
I wasn’t the only person who was perplexed. The experts debated the meaning of this phrase as intensely as they did the physical evidence being presented.
During cross-examination, Carlo demanded, “ ‘Not incompatible?’ What does that even mean? If the knife was compatible, wouldn’t you have written ‘compatible’? You wouldn’t have bent over backward, twisting words around to create this ambiguous meaning. ‘Not incompatible’? Am I to understand, perhaps, that the confiscated knife is ‘not incompatible’ if only because it’s a pointy knife with a single sharpened edge? Am I to understand that any pointed knife with a single sharpened edge—most knives—would equally qualify as ‘not incompatible’ with Meredith’s wounds? Yes?”
“Yes,” the expert answered.
During the afternoon hearing, it turned out that Raffaele’s knife was, in fact, not compatible. The blade was too wide to have inflicted Meredith’s two smaller wounds.
The third and fatal wound was a gash to the throat. The pathologist said Meredith had been stabbed at least three times in the same spot. But the blade of Raffaele’s kitchen knife, at 6.89 inches, was longer than the wound was deep—by more than 3.5 inches. Under Carlo’s questioning, Professor Torre, a serious man in his sixties who favored lime-green glasses, explained that in a moment of homicidal frenzy, it would be highly unlikely for a killer to plunge a knife in only halfway, to 3.149 inches. And the odds would rise to impossible when you considered driving a knife in, to precisely the same depth, measurable to a thousandth of an inch, three times in a row. Torre brought in a foam bust and an exact copy of the knife to demonstrate how implausible this feat would be. I thought it was a good idea, but I couldn’t watch anyone stab anything—even a dummy. The notion that anyone thought I could have done that to a person—to my friend—made me not just heartsick but feeling like I might throw up. I squeezed my eyes shut.
As he had done when the prosecution showed Meredith’s stomach contents, the judge cleared the press and public from the courtroom so photos of Meredith’s wounds could be projected on a pull-down screen. These were the same deeply disturbing autopsy photos Carlo had tried to show me seventeen months before. I knew then that I could never stand to look at them.
It kept me from glancing up.
But I couldn’t choose not to hear. Dr. Torre said there was a scratch at the top of the lethal wound. The pressure had been just enough to nick the skin, he said, adding that the scrape was made from the hilt. The only way this could have happened was if the full length of the blade penetrated Meredith’s neck. More proof that Raffaele’s knife could not be the murder weapon.
At the next hearing Manuela Comodi, the co-prosecutor in charge of forensics for the trial, swept into the courtroom triumphantly carrying a flat cardboard box, a little smaller than the ones used for carryout pizza. After opening it, Comodi paraded it in front of the court, as though she were displaying the queen’s jewels. Her pride showed on her face as the jurors and experts stood up, straining in her direction to get a good look at what was inside—the knife that had been confiscated from Raffaele’s apartment was wrapped in a baggie. Only Comodi was allowed to touch it, to pick it up and hold its plastic-shrouded blade up to the light.
Her theatrics were exasperating. The prosecution continued to say that it was Meredith’s DNA that had lodged in a small scratch on the knife blade. The prosecution still claimed this as incontrovertible proof that I had used the knife to kill Meredith. I knew it to be a regular kitchen knife that had last been used to prepare a salad.
After everyone had had a good look, Comodi gingerly closed the box and left the courtroom.
A DNA reading is a series of peaks that looks like an EKG. By analyzing the size of the peak in thirteen or more locations, scientists can be almost certain they have a DNA profile unique to one person—or that person’s identical twin. Done correctly, the reading is more accurate than a fingerprint.
During the pretrial, Stefanoni testified that she had tested enough DNA from the knife to get an accurate reading. But now, a year later, Dr. Gino had seen the raw data, including the amount of DNA that was tested. If there was any DNA there at all, it was too little to determine using the lab’s sensitive instruments, Gino said. Stefanoni had met none of the internationally accepted methods for identifying DNA. When the test results are too low to be read clearly, the protocol is to run a second test. This was impossible to do, because all the genetic material had been used up in the first test. Moreover, there was an extremely high likelihood of contamination in the lab, where billions of Meredith’s DNA strands were present.
The prosecution said Stefanoni’s methods were perfectly acceptable, because in proving that the knife was the murder weapon, she’d “struck gold.” But an unbiased analyst would have thrown out the results.
What I couldn’t understand was why this infinitesimal, unconfirmed sample found on a random knife that didn’t correspond with Meredith’s wounds or the bloodstain on the bedsheet—the murderer’s signature— held any sway. Copious amounts of Rudy Guede’s genetic material had been found in Meredith’s bedroom, on her body, in her purse, and in the toilet.
Perhaps most telling, when the knife was tested for blood, not even a diluted trace was found, evidence that should have convinced the prosecution’s scientists that any DNA that might have been found there had come from contamination—not from a cut.
But the prosecution didn’t admit they had tested for blood until our experts found out for themselves.
The situation was similar to the prosecution’s claim throughout the investigation, the pretrial, and now the trial that my feet were “dripping with Meredith’s blood.” My lawyers and I had spent hours trying to figure out why they thought this. We knew that investigators had uncovered otherwise invisible prints with luminol. Familiar to watchers of CSI, the spray glows blue when exposed to hemoglobin. But blood is not the only substance that sets off a luminol reaction. Cleaning agents, bleach, human waste, urine stains, and even rust do the same. Forensic scientists therefore use a separate “confirmatory” test that detects only human blood, to be sure a stain contains blood. Had the Polizia Scientifica done this follow-up test?
Under cross-examination during the pretrial, Stefanoni was emphatic. “No,” she responded.
It wasn’t until Dr. Gino read the documents Judge Massei had ordered the prosecution to share with us that she, and then the rest of my defense team, began seeing a pattern. As with the knife, it turned out that Stefanoni’s forensics team had done the TMB test and it came out negative. There were footprints. But they could have come from anything—and at any time, not necessarily after the murder. What matters is that there was no blood.
On the stand, Stefanoni declared that the negative blood test was irrelevant. We knew we were looking at blood, she explained, because the luminol glowed more brightly.
“Is it true that luminol glows more when sprayed on blood?” Carlo asked Dr. Gino.
“No.”
The prosecution had an answer for everything, even when it meant lying to cover up other lies.
Stefanoni assumed that because both Meredith’s and my DNA were found in the hall outside the bathroom, I was connected to the murder. It was a startling mistake for a forensic scientist to make.
Human beings shed thousands of skin cells every hour and nearly a million a day. We all leave DNA wherever we go—when we rest an arm on a counter, eat a spoonful of ice cream, grab a steering wheel, or walk barefoot, as I did when I came home for a shower on the morning of November 2. Of course my DNA would be mingled with Meredith’s in the common hallway between our bedrooms—we’d lived in the same house and walked on the same floor tiles for six weeks.
The prosecution had no evidence against us, and worse yet, they’d withheld information likely to prove our innocence.
More infuriating was that Stefanoni continued to
argue the prosecution’s inaccurate points during cross-examination.
Some things could not be proven or disproven. DNA doesn’t show its age. Science has no way of knowing when I left footprints in the hallway or what time I was in the bathroom. Or how long Raffaele’s DNA had been on Meredith’s bra clasp—the only evidence that tied Raffaele to Meredith’s bedroom. It meant that both Raffaele and I were in the same excruciatingly frustrating position.
When the white-suited Polizia Scientifica first swept the crime scene on November 2 and 3, the little strip of fabric with the bra fastener lay under the bloody cushion beneath Meredith’s body, cut from the rest of the bra. The forensics team put a placard beside it, assigning it the letter Y. But when they bagged the evidence in Meredith’s bedroom and sent it to the forensics lab where Stefanoni worked in Rome, sample Y was overlooked and left behind.
Six weeks later, when the Polizia Scientifica returned to No. 7, Via della Pergola, they spotted the bra clasp again. Only this time, it was a yard from where it started, lying beneath a rolled-up carpet and a sock. Between the forensics team’s two trips, other police units had ransacked the villa. Unlike the Polizia Scientifica, those units had made no pretense of keeping the crime scene safe from contamination.
Replaying the video of this second trip into the villa, Raffaele’s forensics expert pointed out, “The clasp goes from one scientist to another, and we don’t see gloves being changed. We then see it being put on the floor and picked up again. These procedures are all wrong . . . By not changing gloves and by touching other objects, cross-contamination of DNA is highly possible.”
When Stefanoni was asked how the bra clasp got from one spot to another without being contaminated, she responded, “È traslato”—“It moved”—the same phrase Italians use when they’re talking about religious miracles.
“It didn’t get contaminated in that process?” Raffaele’s DNA expert asked her.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because DNA doesn’t fly,” she snapped.
“It was trampled and dragged across the floor and you’re saying there’s no possibility it was contaminated?”
Had Raffaele been in the room, his DNA would have been as abundant as Guede’s. It would be illogical to suggest that it was left on a single small hook on Meredith’s bra and nowhere else. Furthermore, one of Raffaele’s defense experts pointed out that the genetic profile was incomplete, and could have matched hundreds of people in Perugia’s small population. But the main point is that this piece of cloth and metal had been underfoot and moved around by the dozens of people who went through the house in the six weeks since it had first been photographed. The contents of the room had been moved, and many items piled in heaps. The cloth fragment had clearly been moved around the floor, and who knows where else.
The prosecution worked hard to convince the judges and jury that their forensic findings made sense.
One morning, Manuela Comodi, the co-prosecutor, told the court that to show her dedication to the case, she had brought in her own bra.
She was carrying a white cotton underwire bra, the closest match in her drawer to what Meredith had been wearing, although, she said, chuckling, it was larger than Meredith’s. Comodi hung the bra on a hanger to mimic a person wearing it. Using her index finger, she showed the mesmerized court how Raffaele could have hooked his finger to pull the back strap of Meredith’s bra (somehow leaving DNA on the clasp but not the cloth) and then sliced off the fastener section with a knife.
Jury members tittered. The explanation and demonstration were absurd, but no one looked skeptical. Are people actually buying this?
Another day, the prosecution said that finding my DNA in the bathroom was proof I’d been involved in the murder. They didn’t consider that I had lived in the villa and used that bathroom every day for weeks. Even rookie forensic scientists know that roommates leave DNA in bathrooms, but the prosecution insisted it was incriminating evidence. They claimed that the only way my DNA could have been collected with the samples of Meredith’s blood was if I’d been washing her blood off my hands.
The prosecution said they were certain the murder had been a group attack. Why, then, was none of my DNA or Raffaele’s DNA in Meredith’s bedroom? Their answer: because Raffaele and I had scrubbed the crime scene clean of our DNA, leaving only Guede’s.
That theory gave me super powers. DNA is not something you can cherry-pick; it’s invisible. Even if I could somehow magically see DNA, there is no way I could tell one person’s DNA from another’s just by looking—no one can.
The prosecution contended that, as representatives of the state, they were the impartial party and maintained that their conclusions were legitimate. Our experts, they said, couldn’t be trusted because they were being paid to defend us. And our critiques, objections, and conclusions were just smoke screens created to confuse the judges and jury.
The divide between experts for the defense and the prosecution grew wide and bitter. The two sides had reached a stalemate. Both defense teams decided that an independent review of the evidence was essential.
I’m sure some people thought we were grandstanding when Carlo asked the judge to order such a review. I didn’t want to extend my time in the courtroom, or to make the Kerchers sit there an extra minute. It distressed me that Meredith’s family thought I was guilty, but I always had huge empathy for them. No matter the verdict, they would leave Perugia without their daughter and sister. I knew their pain would stay fresh, casting sadness over everything good. But I also knew I had to ask for an independent review. What was at stake for me was how I would be allowed to live my life. No one else’s future depended on this trial except Raffaele’s and mine.
The court’s deliberation over whether to grant an independent review was unnervingly quick. I sat between my lawyers for just fifteen minutes. “What do you think they’ll decide?” I asked Carlo and Luciano. “It’s hard to see why they wouldn’t grant it. It’s the only fair thing to do.”
“We made a legitimate argument,” Carlo answered, “but it’s hard to tell with this judge.”
“It’s not the end for us if the request isn’t accepted,” Luciano said. “It doesn’t mean we’ve lost. Coraggio—courage—Amanda.”
When the court came back in, I squeezed Luciano’s hand under the table and waited, barely able to breathe.
With zero fanfare—the way he did everything—Judge Massei stood at the microphone and announced, “There will be no independent review. The court has heard enough expert opinion to make a decision in the case.”
This was by far the biggest blow yet. Carlo and Luciano looked weary and disappointed, and neither met my eyes that afternoon.
But I was still so blinded by hope, and my faith in my own innocence, that I actually read this news as positive. I could be accused, but they couldn’t possibly convict me of something I hadn’t done. There was only one honest outcome. I couldn’t imagine that the jurors would side with the police without question. They couldn’t ignore everything that our defense had put forth. “They must think we don’t need the review because there’s already enough reasonable doubt,” I said to Luciano.
He patted me on the arm but didn’t answer.
I was convinced that my perspective was right. If the two sides are saying completely different things, that has to mean reasonable doubt. I’ll take reasonable doubt. That’s good enough for me. I really did feel that turn meant that my freedom was near.
After so many witnesses, and so many words over so many months, there were no more questions to be asked or answered. The judge announced that the court would adjourn until November 20, to allow the prosecution and defense lawyers to prepare their closing arguments. I couldn’t believe I had to wait six weeks! Barring an emergency, with the finality of a curtain drop, the court would render a verdict on Friday, December 4.
October 10–December 4, 2009
In the weeks leading up to the closing arguments, I put our chances of winning at 95 percent.
Carlo gave us fifty-fifty. “Judge Massei challenges the defense a lot more than he does the prosecution,” he said. “And the judges and jury nod whenever the prosecution or the Kerchers’ lawyer talks, but look bored when it’s our turn.”
Still, I held tight to optimism.
Not without reason. Journalists told Mom and Dad they weren’t convinced by the prosecution’s arguments. Even the Italian media, uniformly negative since the beginning, seemed to be turning around. A show I saw on the second anniversary of Meredith’s death replayed Rudy Guede’s first recorded conversation, in which he said that I wasn’t at the villa. If the press can see the truth, surely the judge and jury can, too.
I got daily mail from strangers who had faith in me. And now that the forensic information was public, two renowned DNA scientists, Dr. Elizabeth Johnson of California and Dr. Greg Hampikian, a professor and head of the Idaho Innocence Project, had written a letter of concern signed by seven other experts from around the United States. “No credible scientific evidence has been presented to associate this kitchen knife with the murder of Meredith Kercher,” the report read. The problem with the bra clasp, it said, was contamination. The scientists concluded that the DNA evidence on the knife and the bra clasp “could have been obtained if no crime had occurred.”
The science would win the day. I would be acquitted, if not outright, then for reasonable doubt. The prosecution’s talk was just that—talk. It wasn’t enough for an intelligent jury to convict me.
But sometimes my confidence flagged, and I felt a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. In high school I’d learned that 95 percent of criminal cases in the United States end in conviction, and I couldn’t get that statistic out of my head. I was too afraid to ask if it was the same in Italy.
