Rudy instinctively raised his right hand up to protect himself and backed away but the man came after him, jabbing at Rudy’s hands with his knife. Rudy hadn’t done up his trousers properly in his haste to rush out of the bathroom; they suddenly dropped down and he fell to the floor near the fridge but then managed to grab a chair and throw it at the attacker, who fled from the cottage. The attack lasted just a few seconds – Rudy had previously said that it lasted some five minutes.
Asked to describe the attacker, Rudy said he was white, a bit shorter than he was and probably the same age, with sharp cheekbones and a slight double chin. He wore a white woollen hat.
As the man fled, Rudy heard him say in Italian, apparently to someone else: ‘He’s black. I’ve found a black guy, I’ve found the culprit. Let’s go.’ He heard the sound of ‘more than one person’ walking on the gravel in the drive, went to a window and recognised Amanda who was running away.
Rudy went back to Meredith. Still wearing the jeans and the white top, and shoes, she lay on her back on the floor with her face turned upwards, bleeding from the left side of her neck.
‘I’d never seen anything like that in my life. My first thought was to go to the bathroom and fetch a towel. I put it on her neck but it got soaked very quickly and I went back and got another one and held that against her neck,’ Rudy said.
Meredith was still moving and repeating something again and again, but blood was coming out of her mouth. All Rudy could make out was ‘af …’ His hands were covered in blood and he tried to write the letters on the wall above the bedside table.
Asked to describe the state of the room he said it was tidy; the bed was made, with a red quilt on top of it.
‘When did you decide to leave?’ Mignini asked.
Rudy stumbled repeatedly as he answered: ‘When Meredith didn’t have … at a certain point she … as I don’t know how to define it … she had a bit like … at a certain point she sort of passed away.’
He had no idea what to do. Should he run out into the street and scream for help? ‘I panicked because I said to myself: “No one’s going to believe me.” My hands were dirty with blood, I’d kneeled down … when I put the cushion down, part of my left foot, part of my left knee had got soaked because I’d crouched down close to her, I was trying to help her.’ He then ran out of the house to his own home.
On the following day, he decided to go and see an aunt, who had raised him as a child, in the city of Lecco on Lake Como; he would tell her everything. He got as far as Milan, but then took the wrong train and ended up first in Austria, and then in Germany.
As the questioning drew to an end after three and a half hours, Rudy said he had one last thing to say: ‘I’m to blame because I could have called the ambulance, I could have gone out into the street and screamed and called someone. I say just this: if I have to do God knows how many years in prison because I didn’t save someone’s life I’ll do it, no problem. But I don’t see why I should do even one day in prison because people think I killed someone.’
Mignini didn’t believe a word of Rudy’s account. For one thing, Meredith’s friends, who were with her the whole time she was at the Domus on Halloween, said that no coloured man had approached her there. The prosecutor believed that Rudy was still very attracted to Amanda, and suspected that on the night of the murder he’d been more interested in Amanda than in Meredith.
And yet Mignini felt sorry for Rudy, whom he saw as the most helpless of the three accused. Amanda and Raffaele had their families behind them; Rudy had no one. He’d been abandoned by his family and had a wretched life. The prosecutor hoped that Rudy would one day come clean and tell the whole truth, but so far he’d done nothing to help himself by continually changing his story.
37
28 March 2008
Part of Rudy’s story, and his accusation against Amanda, was swiftly leaked to the media. Two days after Rudy talked to the prosecutor, Amanda confided to the chaplain Father Saulo that she felt upset and indignant after what Rudy had said.
That was understandable, Father Saulo said, adding: ‘You at least have been sincere!’
Amanda replied firmly: ‘Yes, because I haven’t done anything!’ She was happy, she said, that someone believed in her sincerity.
‘Sometimes, people don’t know what the truth is, even when they’re sincere,’ Father Saulo remarked gently.
‘Father Saulo, I know I wasn’t in that house that night!’
‘Bless you, my girl.’
29 March 2008
The following morning at the Capanne jail, still shaken by Rudy’s version, Amanda told Edda she was worried he had ruined her hopes of being granted some form of house arrest – perhaps a local hostel run by a charity – which her lawyers had formally requested.
‘I was indignant, because … if Rudy was there, he’s just saving his arse now,’ Amanda said.
‘But he’s not saving his arse. The problem is that he’s pointing the finger. But how do you explain all this shit? There isn’t any evidence that you were there,’ Edda said.
‘And if he tries to explain it all by saying for example that he was protecting me, that would be bullshit because he doesn’t know me … I’m so mad now, nothing could have been worse. What’s worse than this?’
Amanda addressed Rudy as if he was in the visiting room with her: ‘You know something? You’re breaking my balls!’
Far from comforting her, Amanda’s cellmate Rosa had made things worse for her: ‘She came up to me telling me that I’d spend the next thirty years in prison, and that the best thing would be to lie and say that I had something to do with it … Which is simply bullshit!’
As Amanda talked of Rosa’s twenty-five-year sentence, she bent down to rest her head on Edda’s breast, saying she wanted to feel closer to her. Edda tried to distract her, talking of relatives who would be coming to visit but Amanda fell silent for a while. Edda urged her to be patient and wait for the house arrest ruling due the next week.
‘Yes, I want to see what happens … otherwise, I’ll have to get a bit better organised with a kitchen, a coffee machine, all that stuff …’ Amanda said in a low voice.
That was no problem, Edda said, she would bring her everything she needed.
‘Thanks, but the whole thing is a problem here,’ Amanda said. She bowed her head, lost in thought.
Edda tried to cheer her up: ‘You’ve survived injustice … You’ll get out of all this, you’re innocent. And you’ll be alive at least … And the fact that you’re such a strong person means you won’t go crazy. You’re doing everything you can to stay as busy as possible; everyone’s been impressed by that.’
‘Thanks,’ Amanda said.
Stroking her daughter’s hand and giving it little taps, Edda went on: ‘Yes, because none of us have found themselves in a situation like this and survived. You’ve done it!’
‘Thanks,’ Amanda said again, smiling.
Edda started crying but managed to say: ‘And you’ll be fine!’
Amanda leant forwards towards her mother who hugged her. ‘I miss you!’ Amanda said, then sat for a while with her eyes closed, her head resting on her hand.
‘That’s why I feel so strong!’ Amanda said eventually.
‘Why?’ Edda asked.
‘Because I always miss you all,’ Amanda replied, beginning to cry.
Amanda talked again about her cellmate. The previous Thursday, Rosa had been in an awful mood and Amanda had spent the whole evening trying to console her, hugging her and caressing her. At one point Rosa had whispered to her: ‘Why don’t we have sex?’ Amanda had burst out: ‘No! No! I’m not gay!’ Amanda guessed that Rosa had said that because she was lonely, and because Amanda was the only attractive female to hand. Amanda was sure that Rosa would go round the bend if she stayed in prison.
Edda told Amanda she must stay strong for however long it took to get her out. She hoped this would happen sooner rather than later.
Amanda asked her
point-blank: ‘Do you think they could make me stay here for twenty years?’
‘No,’ Edda exclaimed, ‘Carlo [Dalla Vedova, her lawyer] said you’ll get out of here!’
It was their most emotional encounter in prison so far; both recognised that the possibility of a trial – and a verdict against Amanda – could no longer be ignored. When Amanda and Edda began to talk about a trial, Amanda said that would mean she would be interrogated by the prosecutor Mignini – ‘the bastard’, she said forcefully.
31 March 2008
After 11 p.m., and preceded by a warning to viewers that the next programme would include ‘strong’ content, the Telenorba 7 channel, a local network based in Raffaele’s home region of Bari, broadcast a current affairs programme dedicated to the Kercher case. It showed footage from the video the forensic police had taken in Meredith’s bedroom the day after the murder.
The two-and-a-half-minute extract left nothing to the imagination. Viewers saw the quilt covering Meredith’s body, then an officer lifting it to reveal her near-naked body, from the head to the stomach, lying in a pool of blood. A close-up focused on her butchered throat; a mask covered her eyes. The film continued as investigators then turned the body over, exposing her bloodstained back and bottom.
The Kerchers’ lawyer Maresca, who prided himself on his usually unflappable character, saw red as soon as he learnt of the broadcast – he could think of no more disgusting lack of respect for Meredith and her family. He called her siblings Stephanie and Lyle and urged them to sue the channel, which they agreed to do. A few days later, Maresca said in a TV interview that only Raffaele’s lawyers had been authorised to copy the police video, implying that they had leaked it to the TV channel; they retorted that his comment was ‘unfair and unfounded’. Police launched an investigation to try to find out how the channel had got hold of the film.
1 April 2008
Amanda’s hopes of freedom before a decision on whether she should stand trial were wrecked yet again when the Supreme Court in Rome ruled that she, like Raffaele and Rudy, must stay in jail. The country’s most senior judges ruled that Amanda was dangerous and must not be freed because of her ‘negative personality’, the possibility that she might flee to America, and the risk that she might seek to tamper with the evidence against her. As for Raffaele, he had a ‘fragile’ character and was a danger to society. Rudy’s participation in the murder was ‘obvious and indisputable’.
In what was effectively a reprimand for Mignini, however, the court ruled that the statement Amanda gave the prosecutor at 5.45 a.m. on 6 November – when she accused Patrick of the murder – couldn’t be used against her or anyone else because although she had been formally placed under investigation she hadn’t been given a lawyer. The prosecutor wasn’t worried that this would weaken his case as Amanda had repeated her accusation in the text she wrote before going to prison, which the court ruled could be used against her and others.
5 April 2008
As Edda and her sister Christina Hagge, who had flown to Italy to join her, waited for Amanda in the visiting room of the Capanne prison, Christina looked around the room and wondered aloud if it was bugged.
‘Who knows …’ Edda said. She was silent for a time, then said in a low voice as she too looked around: ‘Testing, testing, can you hear us? Testing, testing, I’m innocent. She didn’t do anything.’
Amanda walked in and hugged her mother and aunt warmly. She said excitedly that she had jumped for joy that morning when guards gave her a Beatles CD, which Edda had brought her. She loved the book of Bob Dylan songs they had also given her and was copying them out in a notebook.
Edda mentioned the crime-scene video with images of Meredith’s body broadcast by a TV station four days earlier. ‘It’s simply disgusting … Can you imagine Meredith’s family?’ Edda said.
‘Oh … ! You mean they showed the film with Meredith? Oh my God! I didn’t see it,’ Amanda said.
Amanda was more astonished however when Edda told her about an article in an Italian magazine which said that Meredith had been drunk when she was killed. ‘It’s a huge thing, they’re saying now she was almost in an alcoholic coma!’
Amanda looked stunned. ‘Really?’ she said.
Christina mentioned the blood alcohol level – 2.72 gr/l – and Amanda exclaimed, putting her hand over her mouth in surprise: ‘Good God!’
‘Yes, in an alcoholic coma,’ Edda said.
‘Really? Oh … what the heck happened?’ Amanda asked.
‘I don’t know, and now they say that her friends said she’d had a beer, and so they checked the quantity [of alcohol],’ Edda said.
‘What the heck happened?’ Amanda asked again. ‘Good God! So that [quantity] of alcohol came out of the [autopsy] report?’
Edda said she had no idea.
The magazine report turned out to be untrue. Experts appointed by Mignini later established that the figure of 2.72 gr/l was mistaken and possibly due to an error in the preservation of the sample examined; the true value was a slight 0.43 gr/l.
Before Edda and her sister left, they asked Amanda what she would like them to bring her. Amanda said she’d like some knickers, because she’d been walking around without any on and people had been scandalised.
38
19 April 2008
Meredith’s mother Arline, along with Stephanie and Lyle, flew back to Perugia for the first time in six months to attend a closed hearing before Judge Matteini at which the three forensic pathologists the judge had appointed would analyse how Meredith died, basing their conclusions mainly on the results of the autopsy. In charge of preliminary investigations, Judge Matteini would later rule on the latest appeals for the release of Amanda, Raffaele and Rudy.
For the family, the hearing in Perugia’s law courts near the cathedral would be the first time that they would learn the details of Meredith’s death from court-appointed experts. They’d told their lawyer Maresca they were determined to come: they wanted to find out the truth about what Meredith had gone through – particularly whether she’d been raped or not – and how she’d died.
Meredith’s brother Lyle took notes in a big notebook as the three pathologists presented their findings. They reported that Meredith had been ‘involved in sexual activity’ shortly before her death, but on the basis of biological traces alone, it was impossible to say whether she had been a willing participant or not. Meredith had died of asphyxiation caused by strangling and internal bleeding; it would have been impossible to save her life after the stab wounds were inflicted. They gave a wide range for the time of death: between 8.45 p.m. on the night of 1 November 2007 when she was last seen by her friend Sophie, and 12.50 a.m. that night.
When the first harrowing photographs of Meredith’s body were shown on a screen – Maresca had warned them what to expect – Arline, Stephanie and Lyle asked to leave and were escorted by detectives to a small room across the corridor, away from the waiting media. But only a half hour later, to the surprise of many in the courtroom, both Stephanie and Lyle came back. This time they stayed, watching dry-eyed as more photographs of the crime scene, and of the autopsy, were screened.
During a break in the hearing, as Maresca briefed her on the experts’ findings, Arline said to him: ‘Francesco, it’s not possible that they did this to my Mez; it’s not possible. I don’t believe it.’ Arline especially refused to believe that her daughter had been raped, or involved in an erotic ‘game’.
In court, as the pathologists discussed the time of death, Arline quietly asked the interpreter, again and again: ‘How long did it take for Mez to die? Was it a few seconds or a few minutes?’
When one of the experts testified that Meredith’s agony may have lasted as much as ten minutes, the Kerchers remained impassive. The hearing was the first time the Kerchers saw Raffaele, the only one of the three accused who chose to attend it; the Kerchers sat only a few yards away from him and ignored him throughout.
In a short statement issued during
their stay in Perugia, the family gave a glimpse of their suffering. ‘Almost six months since she died we are still coming to terms with the idea of never seeing our Meredith smiling and happy again,’ the Kerchers said.
15 May 2008
Less than a month after the pathologists testified before her, Judge Matteini ordered that all three of the accused should stay in prison. The judge wrote in her ruling that Meredith was ‘subjected to several violent acts characterised by extreme cruelty in a hideous crescendo, surely a sign of perverse personalities devoid of any inhibitions.’
The judge found that there was ‘serious evidence’ against Amanda, and expressed her ‘dismay and apprehension’ at Amanda’s cold, detached manner after the murder; the judge was struck by a woman so young ‘finding it so easy to govern her state of mind’.
20 May 2008
Back in Seattle, and increasingly frustrated by their daughter’s fate, Edda and Curt decided to go on the offensive. They hired David Mariott, a public relations adviser and former TV journalist, and began giving interviews to the main American TV networks in which they criticised Mignini’s investigation. In an interview with the author for the Sunday Times Magazine – the first they gave the British media – Edda, Curt and their daughter Deanna talked for more than three hours about the case. Sitting close together at one end of a long conference table in the office of their publicist in a downtown skyscraper, they made fresh attacks on the Perugian investigators.
Curt said Amanda had been ‘abused physically and verbally’. She had told them that a police officer hit her in the back of the head. She had also said the police told her: ‘If you ask for a lawyer, things will get worse for you.’ The police denied this account.
A Death in Italy: The Definitive Account of the Amanda Knox Case Page 23
