Waiting to Be Heard

by Amanda Knox

  Raffaele, she told the court, was “Mr. Nobody”—­put in by the prosecution as an afterthought. “There was no evidence of him at the scene.” The prosecution had contradicted themselves. “He’s there, but he’s not. He has a knife, but he doesn’t. He’s passive, he’s active.”

  In defending Raffaele, she also defended me. “If the court doesn’t mind, and Amanda doesn’t mind, the innocence of my client depends on Amanda Knox,” she said. “A lot of ­people think that she doesn’t make sense. But Amanda just sees things her way. She reacts differently. She’s not a classic Italian woman. She has a naïve perspective of life, or did when the events occurred. But just because she acted differently from other ­people doesn’t mean she killed someone. . . .

  “Amanda looked at the world with the eyes of Amélie” she said, referring to the quirky waif in the movie that Raffaele and I watched the night of Meredith’s murder.

  Amélie and I had traits in common, Bongiorno said. “The extravagant, bizarre personality, full of imagination. If there’s a personality who does cartwheels and who confesses something she imagined, it’s her. I believe that what happened is easy to guess. Amanda, being a little bizarre and naïve, when she went into the questura, was truly trying to help the police and she was told, ‘Amanda, imagine. Help us, Amanda. Amanda, reconstruct it. Amanda, find the solution. Amanda, try.’ She tried to do so, she tried to help, because she wanted to help the police, because Amanda is precisely the Amélie of Seattle.”

  Then, the moment that Luciano, Carlo, Maria Del Grosso (Carlo’s second), and I had been waiting for. Just as they’d been promising me for more than two years, they went over the entire case—­the witnesses, the forensics, the illogic of the prosecution’s case—­turning the clock back to the beginning and telling it from our perspective.

  “At lunch hour on November 2, 2007, a body was discovered,” Luciano began. “It was a disturbing fact that captured the hearts of everyone. Naturally there were those who investigated. Naturally there were testimonies. Naturally there was the initial investigative activity. Immediately, immediately, especially Amanda, but also Raffaele, were suspected, investigated, and heard for four days following the discovery of the body. There was demand for haste. There was demand for efficiency. There was demand.

  “Such demand and such haste led to the wrongful arrest of Patrick Lumumba—­a grave mistake.”

  Carlo picked up the thread. “There is a responsible party for this and it’s not Amanda Knox. Lumumba’s arrest was not executed by Amanda Knox. She gave information, false information. Now we know. But you couldn’t give credit to what Amanda said in that way, in that moment and in that way. A general principle for operating under such circumstances is maximum caution. In that awkward situation there was instead the maximum haste.”

  Having heard what they wanted to hear and without checking further, the investigators and Prosecutor Mignini arrested Patrick—­bringing him in “like a sack of potatoes,” Luciano said.

  I was relieved to hear someone telling the truth. Seeing my lawyers in this theatrical mode, I relaxed the tiniest bit.

  Maria Del Grosso criticized Mignini for the fiction he’d invented. “What must be judged today is whether this girl committed murder by brutal means. To sustain this accusation you need very strong elements, and what element does the prosecution bring us? The flushing of the toilet. Amanda was an adulterer. I hope that not even Prosecutor Mignini believes in the improbable, unrealistic, imaginary contrast of the two figures of Amanda and Meredith.”

  Yes. Make them stop pitting Meredith and me against each other! We were never like that in real life!

  “In chambers you will have to apply the law, but remember: condemning two innocents will not restore justice to poor Meredith’s memory, nor to her family. There’s only one thing to do in this case: acquit.”

  During the rebuttals, on December 3, each lawyer was given a half hour to counter the closing arguments made over the past two weeks. Speaking for me, Maria criticized Mignini for portraying Meredith as a saint and me as a devil. In reality, she said, we lived similar lives. Meredith had casual sexual relationships. So did I. Meredith wanted to study seriously and be responsible. So did I.

  Mignini continued to insinuate that I had loose morals, going beyond the testimony to come up with his own examples. In an eleventh-­hour swipe at my reputation, he said it was likely that I had met up with Rudy and made a date with him for the one hour Raffaele had planned to take his friend, Jovanna Popovic, to the bus station the night of November 1. I wanted to amuse myself with another boy—­a “not unwelcome distraction.”

  “She was a little, let’s say, very social, Amanda. Amanda was sick of the reproaches of Meredith, who also talked about needing to be faithful to one’s own boyfriend, no doubt! Meredith was precisely of an uncommon level of uprightness.”

  Mignini knows neither Meredith nor me in the least.

  “I’ve asked myself if we were listening to a prosecutor, a lawyer, or a moralist,” Maria said, standing up for women everywhere. “Who are you to make such a claim in the name of a woman that it’s so much like a woman to be at the throat of another woman?”

  Then Raffaele and I made our final pleas. Raffaele talked about how he would never hurt anyone. That he had no reason to. That he wouldn’t have done something just because I’d told him to.

  I’d spent hours sitting on my bed making notes about what I wanted to say, but as soon as I stood up, every word emptied from my brain. I had to go with what came to me, on the few notes I had prepared.

  ­“People have asked me this question: how are you able to remain calm? First of all, I’m not calm. I’m scared to lose myself. I’m scared to be defined as what I am not and by acts that don’t belong to me. I’m afraid to have the mask of a murderer forced on my skin.

  “I feel more connected to you, more vulnerable before you, but also trusting and sure in my conscience. For this I thank you . . . I thank the prosecution because they are trying to do their job, even if they don’t understand, even if they are not able to understand, because they are trying to bring justice to an act that tore a person from this world. So I thank them for what they do . . . It is up to you now. So I thank you.”

  My words were so inadequate. But at least I remembered to thank the court again. Now I had to put my faith in what my lawyers and our experts and I had said month after month. I had to believe that it was good enough.

  When I went back to prison that afternoon, I saw Don Saulo.

  “I’m feeling hopeful,” I said. “I think everything is going to work out well. Things have turned around. It’s clear the evidence against me is unreliable. There are lots of ­people who support me. So why do I feel like I’m about to be executed?”

  On the final morning, I was glad for the thirty-­minute van trip from the prison to the downtown courthouse. It gave me something to do. And even though I’d be leaving prison as soon as the verdict was rendered, I was happy I could briefly be in the courtroom with my family before we had to wait out the verdict separately.

  It took about a minute for Judge Massei to declare the trial formally over. The time had come for the judges and jury to decide whom they believed. They exited single file through the door to chambers in the front of the courtroom. I stared at the door after it closed, wishing I knew what was going on behind it.

  Then the prison van took me back to Capanne. I felt completely helpless, pointlessly thinking about what I should have said in my plea.

  Back in my cell, I paced, sat on my bed, paced, sat. I tried to talk with my cellmates, Fanta and Tanya, but I was unable to concentrate on anything they were saying.

  They were prepping me on all the superstitions I had to remember when I came back with the good verdict—­break my toothbrush in half and throw it away outside the prison, with my hairbrush and the shoes I wore most often. This meant I wasn’t coming back
. “Just before you get in the car, remember to brush your right foot along the ground,” Fanta said. “It means you’re promising freedom to the next prisoner.”

  My head pounded as I shot from excitement to terror and back again—­and again. My brain bounced between Please, please, please and Finally, finally, finally—­THE END.

  Besides my cellmates, Laura was the only person I could stand to see. She came during socialità and made chicken with mushrooms for dinner. I ate one bite.

  I planned to give my pans, pots, and clothes to Fanta and Tanya.

  I told Laura, “I want you to have my bedsheets.”

  “That will be great, Amanda,” she said, “but don’t promise me anything until we know what’s going to happen.”

  “I’m going to write you, Laura,” I told her.

  “I hope so,” she said. “But let’s just wait and see.”

  After dinner Tanya turned on the TV. Every channel was talking about my case: The big day! The world is hanging on, waiting to see what the decision will be in the “Italian trial of the century.” Raffaele and Amanda have been charged with six counts. Meredith’s family will be there to hear the verdict. Amanda’s family is waiting in the hotel. The Americans believe there’s no case, but the prosecution insists that Meredith’s DNA is on the murder weapon and Raffaele’s DNA is on Meredith’s bra clasp. The prosecution has condemned the American media for taking an incorrect view of the case.

  The ­people on TV dramatized it: the lives of two individuals—­will they walk free or spend the rest of their lives in prison? And on another channel: It’s a question of whether Amanda goes free or gets ergastalo—­“life imprisonment.”

  Tanya gasped. “What do they mean?” she asked.

  Manuela Comodi, the co-­prosecutor, had called for a life sentence, but it was as if I didn’t understand how that related to me. I said, “Yeah, they asked for life.”

  “They’re going to try to do that?” Far more than I, Tanya realized what was at stake. She was fidgeting.

  In Italy, a life sentence means no parole. The next-­lowest option, thirty years, offers the possibility of parole after twenty years.

  “It’s going to be okay!” I said. “Just calm down!”

  A life sentence couldn’t happen. I have to be acquitted!

  The guards stopped by from time to time to see how I was doing.

  I kept going back and forth from my bed to my locker to do an inventory of my things. Were the books, clothes, and papers I wanted to take out with me ready? Were all my letters organized in a folder?

  Night fell, leaving the air outside damp and cold. Hours passed. I felt tingly, buzzing beneath my own skin. The verdict had to be coming soon.

  Finally, I climbed into bed wearing everything but my shoes. I lay in the dark cell, which was illuminated only by the TV still talking about me and my future.

  Chapter 29

  December 4, 2009

  It was just after 11 P.M. I lay in my cot thinking, Maybe it won’t even happen tonight, when a guard came by. “Amanda, are you ready?” she called, putting her key in the lock.

  I jumped out of bed and started to smooth my sheets. “No!” Tanya and Fanta shouted. “Don’t do that! You have to leave your bed unmade. It’s good luck! It means you’re not coming back.”

  I put on my shoes, took a quick look around, and walked out, leaving my cellmates standing at the cancello—­the cell’s gatelike door—­watching me walk down the hall.

  It was surreal to go outside at this hour. Since my arrest, the only time I’d been out later than 3 P.M.—­the end of passeggio—­was on court days. Even then I was usually back in my cell before dark. I’d only felt the night air and seen the moon through my window.

  It was damp and frigid, the full moon obscured by fog.

  This is the last time, I thought as I climbed into the van, waiting for the guards to slam first the bars and then the double doors in back. After dozens of these trips, I no longer paid attention to the routine. But tonight I felt I had to take it in. This is it! Never again! I’d be coming back to Capanne to gather my things in a squad car.

  My heart was thudding, and the only thought looping through my mind was the same one I’d been saying to the universe all day. Please, please, please, please. I was shaky with nerves and cold. But underneath the anxiety was a hard kernel of certainty. It was almost as if I were in on a secret that no one else knew. I’m getting out! I’m going home!

  Usually the drive into town made me nauseated, but this time I didn’t focus on the van’s swaying. I had a physical memory of every curve in the road. I got frustrated when the guard closed the shade between the prisoners’ compartment and the front seat, so I couldn’t see out. I always strained to see farmers working green fields or the stretch of road where sunflowers grew—­a world saturated with color and filled with hope instead of the beige-­and-­gray universe I inhabited at Capanne.

  But tonight it didn’t matter. I was lost in my thoughts. The jury must have gone over all the evidence and seen that it doesn’t fit. Raffaele and I couldn’t have killed Meredith. The judge would read the counts and announce “assolta”—­“acquitted.” Anything but “colpevole”—­“guilty.”

  Some days it had seemed I waited in the van forever before being taken inside the courthouse, but everything was happening quickly now. I was whisked inside and up the stairs. My sisters Ashley and Delaney were standing by the double doors as the guards propelled me past. They each called out, “I love you, Amanda!” in heartbreakingly sweet voices.

  I could have touched them if the guards had let me. I was that close.

  The Hall of Frescoes had been transformed. All the chairs had been taken out, and hundreds of ­people were standing jammed together. The room was as quiet as it was packed. No journalists called out to me. Everyone was silent. Expectant.

  I’d just seen Mom, Dad, Chris, Cassandra, my aunt Christina, and Deanna that morning, and here they were again, standing in a line, smiling, everyone mouthing the same words: “I love you, I love you.”

  I took my place between Carlo and Luciano, squeezing Luciano’s bearlike hand. “Coraggio,” he whispered, squeezing back.

  It was four minutes past midnight. The court bell rang once. The secretary announced, “La corte,” for the last time. As the judges and jurors filed in, it was as though everyone in the courtroom strained forward, all the energy and nervousness and anticipation driving to the same point in time and space.

  Each of the six counts against me—­murder, carrying a weapon, rape, theft, simulating a burglary, and slander—­had been assigned letters A through F, in that order.

  In the seconds before the judge started reading, I felt both a downward tug in my stomach and wooziness in my head that made me feel as if my body were being pulled apart. It was all going to be over. Please, please, please.

  “On the counts of A, B, C, E, and partially for count D”—­Judge Massei began reading Raffaele’s and my verdicts simultaneously, his voice flat and so quiet that I struggled to hear, willing him to say “assolta”—­“the defendants Sollecito, Raffaele, and Knox, Amanda, are found . . .”

  “No!” someone behind me wailed.

  “Colpevole,” Judge Massei said. “Defendant Knox, Amanda, is also found colpevole for count F.”

  Flattened by the words, I could no longer stand. I fell against Luciano, burying my head against his chest, moaning, “No, no, no!”

  I didn’t hear the judge say, “I’m granting the attenuanti”—­“extenuating circumstances,” meaning a lower sentence. “I’m sentencing Knox, Amanda, to twenty-­six years and Sollecito, Raffaele, to twenty-­five years. This court is adjourned.”

  My life cleaved in two. Before the verdict, I’d been a wrongly accused college student about to walk free. I was about to start my life over after two years.

  Now every
thing I’d thought I’d been promised had been ripped away.

  I was a convicted murderer.

  I was less than nothing.

  I didn’t hear ­people cheering or jeering. Some were calling me an assassin. Others were calling for my freedom. The only sounds I picked up, above the chaos, were my mom’s and Deanna’s sobs rising up behind me and smothering me in pain.

  Then the guards on either side of me lifted me under my arms and carried me out of the room. Ashley and Delaney must have been standing in the same spot I’d seen them before, waiting to hug and kiss me in celebration, but I could not see through my tears.

  Carlo stopped us just before we started down the stairs. He was breathless. “I’m so sorry! We’re going to win! We’re going to win. Amanda, we’re going to save you. Be strong.”

  It was only a second. And then we were gone. Instead of putting me in the tiny holding cell where I usually ate lunch or waited for the van, the guards sat me in a chair. I was moaning, “No, no, no,” hysterically. Raffaele was beside me, saying, “Amanda, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

  One of the guards kept saying, “Come on. Be a good girl. Hold on. It’s going to be okay.”

  I kept crying, “It’s impossible, it’s not fair, it wasn’t true, I need to go home.”

  They led me outside to the van and slammed the barred door.

  As we were pulling out, I took one look outside. The guard driving the van hadn’t pulled down the shade, and I could see the cameras flashing. Then I slumped over in my seat and wailed, gasping for breath.

  My sentence was all over the news.

  “Twenty-­six years is a strange sentence,” one of the guards said. “If they wanted to get you they would have said, ‘Life.’ It’s almost like they were trying to give you hope for the future. You have such good behavior. In ten years you’ll be able to work outside the prison during the day.”

  They were trying to reassure me.