I’m very grateful, again, to my wonderfully supportive agent Clare Alexander, and to Rupert Lancaster, my publisher who championed it all from the beginning, as well as the rest of the team at Hodder & Stoughton, especially Jason Bartholomew, Meryl Evans, Tara Gladden, Ben Gutcher, Kerry Hood, Alice Howe, Laura Macaulay, Kate Miles, Maddie Mogford and Justine Taylor. Warm thanks to Giovanna Punzo and Antonio Cristofari for their hospitality, to my parents for their encouragement, and especially to my mother for her work on early drafts.
And lastly, thanks to my wife Rita and my son Sébastien for their patience and much more.
Picture Acknowledgements
Giancarlo Belfiore: 2 below left and right. Nick Cornish: 1 above, 2 above left, 3 below, 4, 5, 6, 7 below, 8 below. Roberto Settonce, courtesy Giornale dell’Umbria: 2 center right, 3 above. Perugia Police Department: 2 above right. Sophie Purton: 1 below. 8 above: © Tiziana Fabi/AP/Press Association Images.
Every reasonable effort has been made to contact the copyright holders, but if there are any errors or omissions, Hodder & Stoughton will be pleased to insert the appropriate acknowledgement in any subsequent printing of this publication.
The cottage at 7, via della Pergola, where both Meredith and Amanda fell in love with the view over the rolling hills. ‘I love it – I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Amanda said when she discovered the view.
Amy Frost and Meredith. Meredith’s friends remember her as fun, bubbly and quick-witted.
Biologist Patrizia Stefanoni (centre) of the Rome Forensic police, standing in front of the open door to Meredith’s bedroom on the night after the murder. Stefanoni was to play a key role in the investigation and the trial.
The sight that greeted the first investigators in Meredith’s room; her body lies under the quilt. They saw the fact that the body was covered as a revealing clue.
Police take Meredith’s body out of the cottage. Her family faced a long wait before they were finally allowed to bury her.
Observers were struck, and dismayed, by how often Amanda and Raffaele kissed and hugged each other after the murder. Amanda said she needed to be comforted.
Amanda in the garden of the cottage. After the body was discovered, she complained repeatedly about police questioning her for hours.
A handcuffed Amanda is taken to jail. To her left is the detective Rita Ficarra, to whom she admitted being in the cottage on the night of the murder – which she later denied.
Patrick Lumumba is arrested a few hours after Amanda accused him of killing Meredith. ‘But are you sure I’m the person you’re looking for?’ he asked the police.
Meredith’s mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and her father John walk to the lawcourts on the day they testified at the trial. ‘Why would anyone want to hurt her? Did she suffer?’ they asked their lawyer soon after the murder.
Amanda’s father Curt and her mother Edda by the cathedral. ‘Be more on your guard. It’s a foreign country you’re going to,’ Edda had told Amanda before she left Seattle.
Prosecutors Manuela Comodi and Giuliano Mignini. Like all investigators who worked on the Kercher case, it was to touch them more deeply than any other.
Amanda makes a cheerful entrance on the first day of the trial. Her behaviour – she smiled, chatted and laughed in court – stunned many observers.
Amanda shocked the court on Valentine’s Day with a tribute to the Beatles, her favourite band – an oversize t-shirt stamped with the words: ‘All you need is love’.
Raffaele in court. In a blog, he wrote that he wanted to find ‘bigger thrills which will surprise me.’
A tomboy at the time, Amanda only reluctantly agreed to wear make-up and posed for her sister’s photography assignment. Amanda posted this picture on a website.
Surrounded by four prison guards, Amanda smiles at Curt as she arrives for the start of a day in court. Her family ensured a relative was always in Perugia for her.
Amanda, moments after the appeal court announced her murder acquittal on the night of 3 October 2011.
Meredith’s friends and many Perugian students hold a candlelit vigil for Meredith on the steps of the cathedral.
A DEATH IN ITALY. Copyright © 2011 by John Follain. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
eISBN 9781250018724
First eBook Edition : July 2012
ISBN 978-1-250-02424-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-01872-4 (e-book)
First published in Great Britain under the title Death in Perugia
by Hodder & Stoughton, an Hachette UK company
First U.S. Edition: August 2012
A Death in Italy: The Definitive Account of the Amanda Knox Case Page 43
