Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir

by Amanda Knox

  Still, I needed them absolutely, whether the outcome was good or bad. If my life were definitively taken away from me, they’d be the only good I had. If I were acquitted and released, they’d be the ones I’d return home to. The decision would affect us all.

  Around my wrist I was wearing a star I’d crocheted. I wore it to every hearing—not as a good luck charm but as a personal emblem. I’d made the star and many more like it for my family, early in my imprisonment. The thread, once a pristine white, had dirtied over the years. The star was my humble attempt to create something new and beautiful from what little I had available to me.

  Judge Hellmann and Assistant Judge Zanetti were there, along with the six jury members wearing their Italian-flag sashes. The Kerchers wouldn’t be there until later, for the verdict.

  Raffaele spoke first, taking off his white Livestrong-type plastic bracelet reading “libera amanda e raffaele”—“FREE AMANDA AND RAFFAELE.” It was a supporter bracelet made by my family. He said he’d worn it since our conviction. He held it up, an offering to the court in the hope that he wouldn’t need it anymore.

  “I have never harmed anyone,” he said. “Never in my life.”

  My turn came next. I was shaking so badly the judge asked if I wanted to sit down. I hadn’t eaten or slept in days, and tears came as soon as I started to speak. I was wringing my hands in front of me, pleading for my life.

  “It was said many times that I’m a different person from the way I look. And that people cannot figure out who I am. I’m the same person I was four years ago. I’ve always been the same.

  “The only difference is what I suffered in four years. I lost a friend in the most brutal, inexplicable way. My trust in the police has been betrayed. I had to face absolutely unjust charges, accusations, and I’m paying with my life for something that I did not do.

  “Four years ago I was four years younger, but fundamentally I was younger, because I had never suffered . . . I didn’t know what tragedy was. It was something I would watch on television. That didn’t have anything to do me . . .

  “I am not what they say I am. The perversion, the violence, the spite for life, aren’t a part of me. And I didn’t do what they say I did. I didn’t kill. I didn’t rape. I didn’t steal. I was not there. I wasn’t present at this crime . . .

  “I want to go home. I want to go back to my life. I don’t want to be punished, deprived of my life and my future, for something I didn’t do. Because I am innocent. Raffaele is innocent. We deserve freedom. We didn’t do anything not to deserve it.

  “I have great respect for this court, for the care shown during our trial. So I thank you.”

  I sat down and silently sobbed. I’d never felt so small and insignificant. I was at the mercy of a court that had shown me no mercy for four horrible years.

  Before the judge adjourned the trial, he warned the court, “This is not a soccer game, a terrible crime has occurred . . . now the lives of two young people hang in the balance . . . When the verdict is announced, I want no tifoseria—‘stadium behavior,’” he said. Then the judges and jury withdrew into chambers, and I was led from the courtroom.

  Before being brought to the garage and locked in the prison van, I was allowed to hug my family in the back hallway. Raffaele was there, too, with his family. I asked him if he was nervous. “No,” he answered. But it was a very tentative-sounding no.

  When I got back to Capanne, Don Saulo greeted me at the entrance to the women’s ward. “I’ve put everything off today to be with you,” he said, taking my hand. “My office is completely at your disposal.”

  “Please, let’s go there now,” I said. Once there, I strummed the guitar and sang along to Mass songs that we both liked. Then we pulled out the keyboard, and I practiced the song I’d just learned—“Maybe Not,” by Cat Power.

  Don Saulo took out a pocket tape recorder. “Just in case I don’t get to hear you sing again for a long time,” he said, smiling.

  I sang the song again. Soothed by Don Saulo, my voice was steady.

  The rest of the time, we sat across the desk from each other, talking. As he’d done so many times before, he held my hands—and as always, it gave me comfort.

  Don Saulo’s parents had sent him to seminary when he was eleven. He’d been on his own most of his life.

  “Are you lonely?” I asked. It wasn’t the first time I’d asked, but he always deflected the question.

  This time, he answered. “Yes,” he said. “But I have God. It’s a fulfilling existence, but it’s also lonely. If you serve a certain purpose to humanity, humanity doesn’t always serve you back. In seminario they almost prepare you for that by being really formal, so you don’t get too connected to people. You’re not allowed to have special friends.”

  “That makes me sad for you, but somehow you turned out to be such a strong, caring person.”

  After a few minutes of silence, I said, “I’m so scared.”

  This was not news to him.

  “But I’m ready for whatever happens. I’ve thought it through. I’ve made lists. I’ve written my mom. I’m not going to let this destroy me.”

  “I’m going to be praying for you,” he said, squeezing my hands, his cheeks wet. “I’m praying that you go home, Amanda. I hope I’ll never see you in prison again.”

  “I’m really going to miss you if I’m freed.”

  I’d allowed myself the tiniest shred of hope to say those words.

  Don Saulo gave me a good-bye present: a small, silver flying dove on a thin chain. “The dove represents the Holy Spirit for my church, Santo Spirito, and it also represents freedom,” he explained.

  Around 4 P.M., it was time for Don Saulo to leave. He hugged me for a long time. “I love you like a grandfather,” he said, holding me.

  “I love you, too, Don Saulo.”

  As I headed upstairs to my cell, an agente told me that Rocco and Corrado were waiting to see me. We detoured to the foyer of the women’s ward, where Comandante Fulvio, the head of the prison, was talking cheerfully with them. They were both smiling. “Where’ve you been?” Rocco cried teasingly.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Corrado, steering me into a private office.

  “Really nervous,” I said.

  “We can understand your nerves,” said Corrado, “but everything has changed since before.”

  “After your verdict, we’ve arranged for a car to pick you up from the prison,” Rocco said. “So you’re not swarmed by journalists.”

  “We’ll both be here to take you to Rome,” Corrado said. “We’ve worked it out with your parents. We’re just finalizing the details with Fulvio.”

  Their plans seemed wildly overconfident.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Amanda,” Corrado said, squeezing my hand tightly.

  Back in my cell, Irina and I watched TV. Every channel showed a crowd gathering and hordes of journalists outside the courthouse waiting to be called in to hear the verdict. The reporters recapped the last four years. I liked watching them talk about how the appeal had turned to favor the defense due to the independent experts who had poked gaping holes in the key evidence. Some thought we would win; others disagreed. When the latter came on, I changed the channel.

  I reminded myself that none of them really knew anything. After all, they were reporting that on the chance I was freed, my family had hired a private jet to fly me home. They wouldn’t have mentioned that rumor if they knew my parents were in no position financially to do such a thing.

  It was about 8:30 P.M. when the agente came to get me.

  I shook the whole way to the courthouse. New hives seemed to appear at every turn of the van.

  The holding cage at the courthouse felt like a brick oven. I could hear Raffaele fidgeting on the other side of the thick wall. A couple of times he asked if I was all right.

  “Yes,” I said, my voice weak. My chest hurt. I was shivering uncontrollably. Violently, as if I had a fever of 105. I tried to take deep brea
ths. It didn’t work.

  The guard holding my arm was a tall, sturdy blonde who wore baby-blue eye shadow to match her light blue uniform. I whimpered like a child as we headed upstairs. “Shh, shh,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  Ashley and Delaney were standing by the courtroom door, just as they had at the end of the first trial. The blond agente and a young ponytailed brunette half-pulled me inside. I wasn’t ready to face the decision.

  The courtroom had the feel of a carnival put on mute—an electric, unnatural silence emanated from so many varied bodies. The journalists were allowed to film the reading of the verdict, so there were flashing still cameras and TV cameras. Some journalists had hoisted themselves up on tall stands erected for this moment.

  I didn’t see Meredith’s family coming in. I saw my family standing alert against the fence that ordinarily separated the journalists from the rest of the courtroom. They were smiling at me, but I could see the strain on their faces. I tried to smile back, but my face had frozen. I was pushed between my lawyers, who put their arms around me and tried to calm me. “Are you cold?” Luciano asked. He rubbed my shoulders, pulling me against him.

  I didn’t want the judges and jury to come out.

  I didn’t want to hear their words. I was too afraid they would condemn me.

  The court secretary announced, “La corte!” and the court filed into position. The jury members looked steadily ahead, expressionless. Judge Hellmann began reading aloud. He started with the letter F, the charge for slander. I was pronounced guilty, and my sentence was raised from one year to three—time I’d already served.

  I tried to hold off the terrible resurgence of fear that I’d be convicted on all charges. I had to focus to remember that I could be convicted for slander and not for murder, and I strained against the feeling of drowning until I knew what was coming.

  People started muttering behind me, turning my nerves up another notch.

  “For the charges prescribed in letters A, B, C, D, and E,” Judge Hellmann continued, “La corte assolve gli imputati, per non aver commesso i fatti”—“the defendants are acquitted by the court, for not having committed the acts.”

  I’d been struggling for four years to reach the surface of the water. That first gasp of air was deep, heavy, sudden, and painful. But it was breath. It was life. It was freedom.

  The crowd cheered. Some booed.

  In the seconds before the guards rushed me out of the courtroom, Carlo, Luciano, and Maria hugged me. Then, in one step, I was out, down the stairs, crying, propelled by the guards, who guided my steps.

  Waiting downstairs, I was still crying. Raffaele held my hand, saying, “But Amanda! It’s okay! We’re going home!”

  One of the guards winked. “You’ve done well, little girl,” he said. “You won me my bet!”

  Just before we were taken outside, I embraced Raffaele. “I’ll come see you in Seattle,” he said.

  The guards helped me into the backseat of a regular police car. I buckled myself in and looked out the windows at the trees and cars lining the street. It was dark, but I wanted to see everything—just to see them—because I could. We raced through Perugia and into the countryside, sirens blaring—just like when I’d been taken to the prison the first time. This time I didn’t have my head down between my knees. This time the guards were smiling at me.

  At Capanne, the paperwork had already come through from the courthouse. “It’s time to go,” the guards said. “Run upstairs quickly and grab your things. Now. Run.”

  I ran through the hallway alone, up the stairs to the locked gate. As soon as I called out, “Agente!” for the guard to let me in, the hallway erupted in cheers. Women crowded in front of their gates to see me, thrusting their arms through the bars to touch me, to say good-bye. I touched their hands, a passing marathon runner.

  Irina was at our cell door crying. We hugged. “Take care of yourself,” I said.

  I picked up my bag, walked out of my cell for the last time, and ran back down the hall to shouts of “Amanda, Amanda. Libertà! Libertà! Libertà!”

  Guards took me to the center building and gave me back my passport and money. I didn’t recognize my passport photo. It was a younger me, taken just before I’d left for Italy, before any of this had happened, a picture of the Amanda who’d left Seattle in a rush, excited to be in a new place, to discover herself as an adult in a new culture. I felt sad to see her. I wanted to say, “You have no idea what’s going to happen to you. I want to protect you.”

  I was handed a baggie with the earrings that guards had confiscated when I got to Capanne. The holes in my ears, new when I went to prison, had long since closed up.

  Rocco and Corrado had caught up to me.

  It was all happening so fast.

  They hugged me, teary-eyed, saying, “We’re going to get you out.” They handed me a new iPhone, still in the box. I’d never seen one. “Use this to call us,” Rocco said.

  My stomach was turning over and over, my face hurt from smiling. My heart hurt from beating so hard. I was out! I was free! I was so overwhelmed, I couldn’t talk. I hurt with joy.

  I came out the same door I’d gone through four years before. I remembered to brush my right foot against the ground, the prison ritual to pass on freedom to another prisoner. Comandante Fulvio smiled and shook my hand. Prisoners erupted in cheers, banging pots and pans and waving T-shirts and towels through the bars of their windows, screaming, “AMANDA! LIBERTÀ! E vaiiiiiiiiii! LIBERTÀ! AMANDA! VAI A CASA! LIBERTÀ! Yaaaay! Freedom! Amanda! You’re going home!”

  I was free.

  I was going home.

  Epilogue

  October 3–4, 2011

  Corrado got into the backseat of a black Mercedes with tinted windows and leather seats while I hugged Rocco for the last time. He would be staying behind with Comandante Fulvio. “Thank you for all you’ve done,” I told him, my heart racing. Everything was in a rush.

  “Go on. Go on,” he said. “Call me later.” He winked.

  I got into the backseat of the car and shook the hand of the uniformed driver, a polite and quiet young man who couldn’t have been much older than I was. “What’s happening now?” I asked Corrado.

  The driver started the car and pulled it to the gateway while Corrado quickly explained the plan. “Your family is waiting outside the gate. They’ll follow us to Rome. We’ll pick up your mom along the way. Once in Rome, we’ll drop you off at a safe house for the night. You’ll be flying home tomorrow!”

  I wasn’t prepared for the scene outside the car window as we crawled out of the gate. The driver pushed us through, but we were met with a wall of cameras and people. It was so dark out that I could see only from the flashes of the cameras—journalists surrounding the car, faces practically pressing against the glass. I automatically ducked my head, an instinct I had developed.

  Once past the horde of journalists, the driver hit the gas and we took off down the road and into the countryside, in the opposite direction of Perugia’s city center. I had never turned left going out on that road before, and only had a vague understanding that we were heading west-ish—I wouldn’t be able to see it in the darkness, but I knew we were passing a hill on top of which was a farmhouse I had often seen during the past four years.

  We were driving as quickly as possible, zooming down the curving streets as if in a high-speed chase. I looked behind me and saw a line of cars zooming after us. It was a high-speed chase. There were journalists, paparazzi. “You said we were going to pick up Mom along the way?” I asked Corrado incredulously. How could we go anywhere without being swarmed?

  “Your mother should be in the car following immediately behind us,” Corrado explained. “Our driver will try to lose these journalists and find a quiet spot to pull up and for her to get in.”

  Mom! I thought. I looked back again and saw the headlights of the car close behind us, leading the string.

  “They’re right on us,” the driver said, referring to the
journalists. He turned off the headlights so they would have a harder time seeing us, and we started taking fast turns off the road, circling. I couldn’t see anything from the window. We had to do this maneuver a few times before we found a quiet, deserted patch of gravel, and the car that had been on our tail, headlights turned off as well, growled to an idling halt beside us.

  I opened the door, and Mom hurtled into the seat next to me, so I ended up in the middle between her and Corrado. She was frazzled, but it took her only a split second before she burst into tears and embraced me. In the meantime, another figure hustled into the front passenger seat, the doors closed, and we were off again, kicking up gravel. The car Mom had gotten out of similarly sped off behind us.

  “My baby! My baby!” Mom gushed, and groped my head and shoulders. I buried my face in her neck, almost unbelieving that she was there, that she was in a car with me, that we were racing out of Perugia, racing toward Rome. The driver turned the headlights back on, and we were soon spotted again by journalists chasing us. The car Mom had gotten out of, which she said was being driven by Chris, was meanwhile zigzagging across the length of the already narrow road behind us, trying to keep journalists from getting around him and near our car. At a certain point, Chris told me later, he was even rammed from behind.

  The figure in the front seat of our car finished strategizing with the driver and then turned around in his seat. “Hi. I’m Steve Moore.” He shook my hand and smiled. “We can get to the pleasantries later.” He turned back around and kept an eye on the road as we roared down the streets, eventually merging onto the highway. He must have been around my mom’s age, and had the build of a retired baseball player—strong, padded. He was actually a retired FBI agent who had presumed me guilty until he looked into the case at the urging of his wife. As a result, he became an advocate for my defense in the United States, and wrote online about the evidence from a professional investigator’s perspective, criticizing the prosecution’s claims and explaining why they were wrong. He had written to me in prison, and I had written him back to provide ideas for the name of his daughter’s new pet pig—my favorite idea, even if it was obvious, was inevitably Hamlet.