Original subtitles

(soft suspenseful music)

Downloaded from YTS.MX

(caller speaking Italian)

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

On November the 2nd, 2007,

police in Perugia receive a phone call,

there's been a break-in.

When police arrive, they discover a young woman

has been stabbed to death.

She's Meredith Kercher, a British student,

a girl with everything to live for.

(solemn music)

Amanda, Amanda, Amanda.

For six years, her American flatmate, Amanda Knox,

has been the center of a media and judicial storm,

one of three people accused of Meredith's murder.

Tonight, the central evidence for and against Amanda Knox.

And, for the first time, the audio recording

of Amanda Knox's prison interrogation.

I was innocent and they were telling me

that I was guilty.

Convicted, jailed, acquitted

and now found guilty once more.

Amanda, Amanda.

"It's time," say the victim's family,

"for the case to be resolved."

We all definitely want some form of closure,

and then we can all start to remember just Meredith.

(dramatic music)

(solemn music)

Meredith Kercher grew up in Croydon, South London.

In August, 2007, a new university year is about to start.

Meredith, now 21, prepares to leave for the ancient

and beautiful hilltop city of Perugia, Italy.

She was very excited about coming to Italy,

looking forward to learning more about Italian culture,

and seeing the city of Perugia and making new friends.

And she really fought to come here.

She really wanted to be here.

Mez, as everyone calls her,

is studying European politics and Italian at Leeds.

Now she has an exchange year in Italy,

a country she's been in love with since a school trip.

But saying goodbye to her sister Stephanie isn't easy.

We were just talking on the sofa

and having a little cuddle goodbye,

and then I just remember her suddenly crying

and saying that she was gonna be sad to go,

but she was excited to come, and I remember

being quite taken aback, and I thought,

"Don't make me sad, I'll miss you,

but you'll go and have fun."

She leaves on September the 1st,

and quickly afterwards moves into the upstairs flat

of this cottage with three housemates,

two young Italian trainee lawyers

and a student on exchange from the United States,

20-year-old Amanda Knox.

Amanda has traveled almost 6,000 miles

from Seattle on the Northwest coast

to study Italian in Perugia.

Photogenic, outgoing and describing herself as quirky,

Amanda Knox loves the Beatles and Harry Potter.

She's been studying at university

and has worked three jobs to pay for her Italian adventure.

She is very different from the quiet and studious Meredith.

While housemates, there's said to be tension

over Amanda's supposedly casual attitude

to sex, money and housework.

Within weeks, Amanda Knox lands a job in Perugia,

working as a waitress at Le Chic, a pub owned

by a popular musician from the Congo, Patrick Lumumba.

(Patrick speaking Italian)

She gave me the impression of a good person.

If she wasn't a good person, she wouldn't have worked here.

That doesn't mean

that her relationship with clients pleased me,

because she often talked to the clients

and I had to tell her to get back to work.

On October the 25th, Amanda and Meredith

go to a classic music concert together,

where Amanda meets Italian student, Raffaele Sollecito.

He looks like her favorite, Harry Potter,

and the two begin a whirlwind romance.

Described by friends as intelligent and sensitive,

the handsome Raffaele has come to Perugia

to study information technology.

A week later, October the 31st.

It's Halloween, and in Perugia,

like every other university town, it's party time.

It's one of Meredith's favorite nights out

and she's dressed as a vampire.

These will turn out to be

among the last photographs of her alive.

Happy, full of life, and completely at home

with her new friends.

What happens on the night of November the 1st, 2007,

has been the subject of two trials,

three appeals and two Supreme Court judgments.

The story has more twists and turns

than the medieval streets of Perugia.

The story starts at nine o'clock in the morning

on the 2nd of November, when a local woman

finds two mobile phones in her garden.

She takes them to the postal police,

which handles crimes involving communication devices.

They quickly discover one of the phones

is registered to Via della Pergola 7,

a small cottage just 500 meters away.

When police arrive here,

they see two students in the driveway.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

They tell the police the front door is open.

And one room has been ransacked.

Police go into the house.

One bedroom's a mess.

Clothes are all over the floor

and a large rock is lying near the window.

Shortly after the postal police arrive, at 12:51,

Raffaele Sollecito calls the elite police force,

the Carabinieri.

He doesn't mention that the postal police are already there,

and says nothing's been stolen.

Details prosecutors would later claim are significant.

(Raffaele speaking Italian)

(Amanda speaking Italian)

(officer speaking Italian)

(Raffaele speaking Italian)

(officer speaking Italian)

(Raffaele speaking Italian)

(dramatic music)

Meanwhile, Amanda says she's worried

about her friend, Meredith.

Her door's locked, she's not answering her phone.

When the door is broken down,

they discover a beige duvet on the floor.

Beneath it, the battered and bloody body

of Meredith Kercher.

Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini arrives just after 2:00 pm.

He finds Meredith is partially naked,

her bra's been cut off

and her T-shirt rolled up above her breasts.

It looks like a sexual assault.

When you start an investigation,

you don't know what happened,

you have to slowly reconstruct the situation.

Forensics teams work inside

and outside the cottage.

Right away, they think it's a staged break-in.

Glass shards are on top rather than underneath

the scattered clothes.

The large rock seems too heavy

to be thrown from the ground to the first floor window

and too big to go through the small crack

between the shutters.

A handbag, jewelry case, camera and laptop computer

are lying in full view.

There's a line of bloody shoe prints

from Meredith's room to the front door.

And in the bathroom, a bloody bare footprint

is on the bathmat.

(solemn music)

Over four days, investigators collect

more than 400 items from the apartment,

photographing and filming their work.

When police bag Meredith's bra for evidence,

they notice something is missing.

(investigator speaking Italian)

(officer speaking Italian)

(investigator speaking Italian)

(officer speaking Italian)

(investigator speaking Italian)

(officer speaking Italian)

(dramatic music)

Somehow the investigators leave without it,

a critical error that will haunt the prosecution case.

The autopsy shows Meredith has been strangled and stabbed

on two sides of the neck,

possibly with two different knives.

The second fatal stab severed her thyroid artery.

There are 40 wounds, too many, police believe,

for one assailant to have inflicted alone.

The prosecution's view of what happened,

later disputed by the defense,

is shown in this reconstruction.

Meredith was trained in karate,

and must have encountered overwhelming force.

(Manuela speaking Italian)

One person couldn't, all at the same time,

hold Meredith still and hold back her hands,

because there are very few defensive wounds,

inflict those wounds with a smaller knife

and then give her the fatal blow with the larger knife.

It is impossible.

Not even Superman could do it.

(Manuela speaking Italian)

(gentle bright music)

The behavior of Amanda Knox

and her boyfriend attracts attention.

Meredith's friends tell police

that far from appearing distraught,

Amanda and Raffaele have been seen laughing and joking.

A vigil is held for Meredith,

but Amanda and Raffaele don't attend,

they go for dinner at a friend's instead.

And the prosecutor recalls why he was concerned

by Amanda's behavior.

(Giuliano speaking Italian)

When the girls were brought

to see the knives that were in the kitchen,

the reaction of Amanda, it was a reaction.

She put her hands on her ears, as if she were trying

to block out a terrible sound she was hearing in her ears.

It was like she was having a nervous breakdown.

(Giuliano speaking Italian)

And then there was this,

one of the defining images of the case,

Amanda and Raffaele kissing outside the cottage

where Meredith was murdered.

Her supporters say this was only natural.

Did they comfort each other?

We've seen that famous footage of the two of them together.

They did. What's wrong with any of that?

Nothing.

It did appear to be wrong to some authorities.

November the 5th, four days after the murder.

Raffaele Sollecito is called in for questioning.

Amanda goes with him, and once again

her behavior seems odd.

She does yoga and the splits in the waiting room.

At this point, the couple's alibi appears to fall apart.

Amanda had told police

she'd spent the night of the murder at Raffaele's apartment.

They cooked, watched a film, made love,

smoked marijuana and went to bed.

But separately, Raffaele's story begins to change.

He's no longer sure if Amanda was with him all night.

Amanda's called in for more questioning.

As she is only a witness at this stage,

an interpreter is present

but she has no legal representation.

What happens next is crucial,

and one of the most controversial twists in the story.

Police ask Amanda Knox about text messages on her phone.

In particular, a message from her boss, Patrick Lumumba.

"Don't come to work tonight."

I sent that message.

It's like Sunday, don't come to work.

I sent that message.

Amanda had texted back, "See you later."

She says she just meant see you around,

but police now want to know,

had Amanda arranged to meet Lumumba later that evening

and taken him to her house?

At 1:45 in the morning, Amanda breaks down.

She says she had entered the house with him

because he was attracted to Meredith

and wanted to be with Meredith,

and she stayed in the kitchen and heard Meredith's screams,

and he was the assassin.

That's what she said.

(Giuliano speaking Italian)

Police believe Amanda Knox's story.

They raid Patrick Lumumba's home and take him in.

Within hours, his photo flashes around the world

as one of the murder suspects.

But for the police, Amanda Knox has now gone

from witness to suspect.

If she's taken Lumumba to Meredith,

she must have been at the house.

(Giuliano speaking Italian)

She put herself at the scene of the crime.

She admitted to accompanying Lumumba

as if she were an accomplice in his project.

She was in the room next door

when the crime happened, in her version.

This fact pushed the police to suspend the audition

in order to protect her rights.

(Giuliano speaking Italian)

November the 6th, 2007.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are arrested.

Waiting to be taken to jail, Amanda makes another attempt

to tell police what happened with Lumumba,

by writing out an explanation in English.

In my mind, I saw Patrick in flashes

of blurred images.

I saw him near the basketball court.

I saw him at my front door.

I saw myself cowering in the kitchen

with my hands over my ears, because in my head

I could hear Meredith screaming.

But I have said this many times, so as to make myself clear.

These things seems unreal to me, like a dream.

I wanna make it clear that I am very doubtful

of the verity of my statements,

because they were made under the pressure of stress,

shock and extreme exhaustion.

(soft dramatic music)

But, despite her uncertainty,

she doesn't retract her accusation.

Lumumba remains in jail, pleading his innocence.

In the city square, members of the African community

protest against his arrest.

(Patrick speaking Italian)

The black man is always the thief

and the assassin.

She wanted them to believe what she was saying.

It was just because I was black.

She was looking for someone in society who was credible.

There was a moment when she should have

actually retracted that story.

There's a moment when she should have said,

"No, this is the wrong thing to do."

He was thrown into jail for two weeks, just over two weeks

for something he did not do and he lost his livelihood.

(dramatic music)

At this point, another African immigrant

enters the story.

20-year-old Rudy Guede from the Ivory Coast,

is living in Perugia.

Detectives find his bloody thumbprint on a pillowcase

that was underneath Meredith's dead body.

Because he's an immigrant, they have his prints on file.

Police raid his tiny bedsit apartment

and test his toothbrush for DNA.

It matches traces found on Meredith's bra strap,

on her body and on the left sleeve

of her pale-blue sweatshirt.

Rudy Guede has fled the country.

He's arrested in Germany.

Perugia attorney Valter Biscotti volunteers to defend him.

(Valter speaking Italian)

I met this young man in this prison

in Schiffenstadt, Germany, and he seemed to me

like a guy who was scared, someone who was in the middle

of a story that was bigger than him.

He was surprised to see a lawyer

who arrived from Italy for him.

(Valter speaking Italian)

Extradited back to Italy,

Rudy Guede confirms to police

that he's lived in the country since the age of five.

A keen basketball player, he'd met Amanda and Meredith

after shooting hoops with students

who lived in the apartment below theirs.

They partied and smoked dope together.

Meanwhile, the case against Patrick Lumumba,

as outlined by Amanda Knox, collapses.

A customer at the bar has given him an alibi and he's freed.

How did Amanda Knox come to mention

Lumumba's name to police?

For the first time, we can hear an audio tape

of her explanation to the prosecutor.

A transcript of this was presented in court,

but not the audio.

Accompanied by three lawyers and an interpreter,

on December the 17th, 2007, Knox is asked

why she told police Lumumba committed the crime.

(prosecutor speaking Italian)

Why did you imagine it?

Why?

I was stressed, I was scared, it was after long hours

in the middle of the night.

I was innocent

and they were telling me that I was guilty.

(prosecutor speaking Italian)

What did the police tell you?

The police were telling me

that, "We know you were at the house,

and we know that you left the house."

And the moment before I said Patrick's name

they were put, someone was showing me

the message that I was sent on the phone.

(prosecutor speaking Italian)

I couldn't understand

why they were telling me that I was lying.

They kept telling me that I was lying.

(interpreter speaking Italian)

(prosecutor speaking Italian)

It means that in that moment

that I had said Patrick's name,

I thought it could have been true.

(dramatic music)

So what's the extent

of the police evidence at this point?

It includes a knife

found at Raffaele Sollecito's apartment

they believe could be the murder weapon.

But they need more, so return to the crime scene.

46 days after the murder,

they find Meredith's bra clasp under a mat.

Using rubber gloves, they pick it up and inspect it.

It will become the most controversial piece of evidence

in the investigation.

The defense will claim the delay in collecting it

could have resulted in contamination.

Investigators also, for the first time, use luminol,

a chemical that highlights invisible blood stains.

Three clear footprints appear in the hallway,

plus other small bloodstains.

More new evidence, but it will be controversial.

(gentle upbeat music)

In Seattle, the campaign

to prove Amanda is innocent is underway.

Her family turn to a crisis communications firm

and a group called Friends of Amanda.

It was just this kind of small group of people

that were called the Americans in our offense.

I think there was one quote

that the Americans would send in the marines

to get Amanda Knox.

The campaign helps recast Amanda as a victim,

a young American girl being railroaded

into an injustice far away from home.

I love Italy. I've been to Italy.

And I have great respect for their courts.

I do think we have a rogue prosecutor.

In Italy, if you speak against the prosecution,

you can be prosecuted, so nobody can speak.

And it's a perfect storm

of a potentially very unfair prosecution.

The prosecutor denies this accusation

and believes he personally has become the focus

for criticism of the prosecution case.

I don't know why,

but I was the lightning rod in this case.

It was a personal attack.

(solemn music)

Amanda Knox's DNA has been found mixed together

with Meredith Kercher's in five blood stains in the flat.

Plus, tests show the bare footprints

match the size and shape of Amanda's

and her boyfriend's feet.

And the kitchen knife from Raffaele's apartment

shows Amanda's DNA on the handle

and a tiny trace of Meredith's DNA on the blade.

(dramatic music)

The clock spins forward almost one year, to September, 2008.

Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede

appear before a judge in Perugia.

With so much publicity now surrounding Knox,

Guede opts to be tried quickly and separately.

(Valter speaking Italian)

I was convinced

that if he had been tried with the others,

that with all the international media clamor

and the international pressure

that would have been surrounding this trial,

they would have dumped all the blame on Rudy.

(Valter speaking Italian)

So you have to see the role that money plays,

either it be the USA or even here,

in your situation as a citizen or as a person,

as a suspect, right, you're not,

the justice system is not fair, no matter where you are,

because money's gonna play a role.

Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, Amanda.

The prosecution's case is a tabloid editor's dream.

They say Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito

and Rudy Guede killed Meredith Kercher

in a sex game gone wrong.

Guede denies this and pleads not guilty.

(dramatic music)

His defense is that he wasn't in the room

when Meredith was murdered, he was in the bathroom.

Meredith had invited him over, he said.

When he got there, Meredith was furious

because money was missing and she was blaming Amanda.

He says he comforted Meredith, and things got physical,

but they didn't have full sex.

He went to the toilet, then says

he heard Amanda enter the apartment.

(Valter speaking Italian)

He heard Amanda's voice as she came in.

He was in the bathroom

or just about to go into the bathroom,

and then he really did put on his headphones

and listened to music, rap I think,

at full volume, and then heard a scream.

He came out and came up against a male figure.

(Valter speaking Italian)

Rudy Guede says this man lunged at him

with a knife, cutting his hand.

He claims the attacker then yelled,

"Black man found, black man condemned," and ran away.

Guede found Meredith bleeding in the other room.

He tried to stem the blood with towels,

and left a bloody thumbprint on the pillowcase.

But the bleeding didn't stop, and Guede says he panicked.

(Valter speaking Italian)

He tried to help her.

He took her in his arms and should have called for help,

but he was scared and ran away,

and he feels guilty for this.

(Valter speaking Italian)

Rudy Guede is found guilty of Meredith's murder

and sentenced to 30 years.

The judge's verdict says Rudy Guede did not act alone.

He's led away to prison.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito will now stand trial

for the murder and sexual assault of Meredith Kercher.

(dramatic music)

January the 16th, 2009.

The trial begins.

The world's media is focused on Amanda Knox.

Her face fills the front pages.

Could this attractive, bubbly, all-American girl

be capable of murder?

As they did at Rudy Guede's trial,

the prosecution again suggests the murder

was the result of a sex game gone wrong.

Again, this is strongly denied.

Amanda and Raffaele claim

they weren't in the house that night.

To support their case, the prosecution produces evidence

they claim places the couple at the scene of the murder.

First, there's the DNA found in the bathroom.

The prosecution says it shows the mixed blood

of Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher in the bidet drain,

the sink drain and on a cotton bud box.

There is also a large drop of Amanda's blood

on the bathroom tap.

According to the prosecutor,

this shows Amanda and Meredith were bleeding

at the same time, strong evidence there was a fight.

(Manuela speaking Italian)

The principal evidence

was mixed blood traces from which were extracted

mixed DNA of Amanda and Meredith.

The only explanation for that mix

is that Amanda was bleeding and touched objects

that were covered in Meredith's blood.

There's no other explanation.

(Manuela speaking Italian)

But Amanda's lawyers say this proves nothing.

Two young students living together

means it's perfectly normal

to find mixed blood and DNA in the bathroom.

They say it's possible Amanda's DNA

isn't from her blood at all but from her saliva.

Sarah Gino is the forensic biologist

on Amanda Knox's defense team.

(Sarah speaking Italian)

In the case, the test was done for blood.

But was the test done for saliva? No.

So we can't know if inside that mixed trace there was blood

because it had been demonstrated, or just saliva.

Or maybe there was blood from both of them,

but what does that mean?

Maybe someone had a bloody nose one time and then,

at a another moment, someone cut their finger

and put it down, and their blood got mixed.

Then there is the kitchen knife

found in Raffaele Sollecito's flat.

"This," say the prosecutors, "is the murder weapon,

which has been cleaned."

But they have found DNA of Amanda Knox on the handle

and a minuscule amount of Meredith Kercher's DNA

on the blade.

But the words too low are written

on the DNA reports for the knife.

"The test should never have been carried out,"

say the defense, "there's not enough reliable DNA."

When questioned by journalists,

the prosecution stands by its forensic evidence.

It is not too little.

The genetic profile is low, but it is absolutely reliable.

In fact, we were able to get it,

which means there is no uncertainty

about the attribution of that profile to the victim.

More DNA evidence is presented,

this time on Meredith's bra clasp.

Police says Raffaele Sollecito's DNA is on one of the hooks.

This is the only evidence placing him in her bedroom.

There is no DNA evidence that puts Amanda in the room.

(solemn music)

David Balding, a DNA statistician

at University College London,

is recognized as one of the world's leading analysts.

In 2012, he's asked by the Italian Forensic Association

to study Meredith Kercher's bra clasp

and to give an independent view

on whether Sollecito's DNA is present.

His findings are not part of the court case.

When you just look at the evidence by eye,

you can see very strongly

all of Raffaele Sollecito's DNA types are there

and that can't be explained

by any kind of just environmental contamination.

And I calculate how likely is the evidence,

under the prosecution assertion,

that that DNA is there from Raffaele Sollecito

and again how likely it is without him being present.

And the former is much greater than the latter,

so that's when I say that's extremely strong evidence.

But forensic experts representing the defense

remain adamant that the bra clasp

had been contaminated and is unreliable.

(Sarah speaking Italian)

As far as the bra clasp is concerned,

what happened?

This bra clasp was collected 46 days

after the first crime scene inspection,

and a mixture of biological material was found.

There was a profile attributable to the victim,

which is normal, and other material

that was attributable to Raffaele Sollecito.

There were other traces,

but they were not attributed to anyone.

(Sarah speaking Italian)

But of course, the history of that bra clasp

is a bit unusual because it lay in the room for many days

without being collected and so people are worried

about the possibility of contamination

arising from that.

I can't say anything directly because I wasn't there

and I don't know the circumstances

about the risk of contamination.

But what I can say is that contamination

of DNA from passers-by is not an issue,

I have taken that into account in my,

the chance of it matching Sollecito's DNA

is extremely unlikely.

The defense also uses the crime scene video

to question the DNA evidence presented by the prosecution.

I have looked at the crime scene, the videos.

Bloody shoe prints, cleaned up.

Cleaned up, not saved.

A bra strap collected weeks and weeks and weeks

after the initial collection,

that now supposedly connects Amanda, Raffaele and Meredith.

But the prosecution keeps producing evidence

they say connects Amanda Knox

and Raffaele Sollecito to the crime scene.

Amanda's footprints,

which were revealed by the luminol,

show DNA attributed to Meredith,

which means Amanda was walking in bare feet

covered in blood.

(Manuela speaking Italian)

They argue this is proof

the couple came back during the night to clean up

and stage the break-in, leaving bloodstained footprints

in the bathroom and corridor.

The defense says there is no proof

the prints actually were bloodstains.

The luminol may have revealed another substance,

such as bleach.

The prosecution also presents evidence

to challenge the couple's story of what they did that night

and the next morning.

They show Raffaele's cellphone was turned on

at 6:02 am, despite the couple's claim

they slept until 10:00.

Then there's the telephone call to the Carabinieri,

when Sollecito knew nothing had been stolen,

and failed to mention the postal police were at the scene.

They also question Raffaele Sollecito's changing alibi

and present eyewitnesses who contradict

Knox and Sollecito's stories.

In court, the prosecution accuses Amanda Knox

of being the leader of a sexual attack on Meredith.

They say this was payback

for Meredith's disapproval of Amanda's lifestyle.

(Giuliano speaking Italian)

The erotic game was always part of the case.

I think that night, Amanda wanted to make Meredith pay

for judging her, which she found offensive.

(Giuliano speaking Italian)

A girl from Seattle that worked three jobs

to get to Italy to study abroad,

an honor student from Seattle Prep,

doesn't overnight, in my experience,

turn into a depraved murderess, overnight.

The court's claims make difficult hearing

for the Knox family.

Obviously, listening to those types of things

were, you know, it's horrible.

And, I mean, it was all-out attack on her character

by individuals that have no idea

who she truly is as a person.

One of the things that we have tried to do this entire time

is obviously support Amanda

by always having somebody over here,

somebody to visit her and stuff like that.

And we have to stay strong in order for her to stay strong.

June the 12th, 2009.

Amanda Knox spends two days on the stand,

telling her version of the story.

Millions worldwide watch her explanation

of why she put the pub owner, Patrick Lumumba, in the frame.

They told me that I was trying to protect someone.

(interpreter speaking Italian)

But I wasn't trying to protect anyone.

(interpreter speaking Italian)

And they continued to put so much emphasis

(interpreter speaking Italian)

on this message that I had received from Patrick,

(interpreter speaking Italian)

and so

(interpreter speaking Italian)

I almost was convinced that I had met him.

(interpreter speaking Italian)

(soft dramatic music)

Her case is this.

She was at Raffaele's house when the murder happened,

watching a movie and reading her emails.

She can't prove it because two of their three computers

were damaged when police tried to search the hard-drives.

Throughout the year-long trial,

Meredith's family fly in from London

to testify and witness the key hearings.

They try to keep the focus on Meredith

and their quest for justice.

(dramatic music)

The 3rd of December, 2009.

The eve of the verdict.

Amanda's family arrives to hear her plea for freedom.

She knows that she's innocent

and has had nothing to do with this

and we're just very hopeful

that the court will see and be able to see

that in the evidence that's been presented.

Amanda is now almost fluent in Italian.

(Amanda speaking Italian)

(somber music)

The 4th of December, 2009.

323 days since the trial started,

the verdict is broadcast around the world.

(judge speaking Italian)

Guilty of murder.

25 years for Raffaele Sollecito

and 26 for Amanda Knox,

the extra year for slandering Patrick Lumumba.

The Kerchers' Italian lawyer is satisfied.

(Francesco speaking Italian)

The failed alibis, the behavior

of Sollecito and Knox, Knox's statements,

the slander of Patrick Lumumba.

These are all elements that, once put together,

allowed the determination of guilt.

(Francesco speaking Italian)

But Knox's family are angry.

They keep tight-lipped as they leave the courtroom.

Push back, push back.

Chris, Chris, stop it.

And when they return to Seattle,

they immediately start preparing her appeal.

There's not one piece of physical evidence

to link this girl to this crime.

They draft legal, forensic,

media and political support from the US and Italy

to strengthen the defense team.

(dramatic music)

November the 24th, 2010.

It takes a year to get to the appeal.

By now, Knox and Sollecito have been in jail

for three years.

This time, there's a new judge

and a new prosecutor, Giancarlo Costagliola.

(Giancarlo speaking Italian)

Despite the fact

that there had already been a conviction,

the deputy judge said at the beginning of the hearing

that the only thing that was certain

was that a girl was dead.

(Giancarlo speaking Italian)

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito's defense teams

decide to focus on Rudy Guede.

They call prison inmates, convicted criminals,

to testify that Guede has confessed to them in prison.

June the 27th, 2011.

Rudy Guede takes the stand.

By now, after an appeal, his sentence

has been cut from 30 to 16 years.

He denies he made a jailhouse confession

and is asked about a letter he has written,

claiming Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito killed Meredith.

(lawyer speaking Italian)

(Rudy speaking Italian)

(lawyer speaking Italian)

(Rudy speaking Italian)

(lawyer speaking Italian)

(Rudy speaking Italian)

The key focus of the appeal is on the DNA,

Knox and Kercher's DNA on the knife,

Sollecito's on the bra clasp.

Is it enough to place the defendants

at the crime scene or not?

The court appoints independent experts,

Carla Vecchiotti and Stefano Conti

from the University of Sapienza, Rome,

seen here greeting Raffaele Sollecito's father and sister,

to review the science.

Their report is scathing about prosecution forensic methods.

They cite US manuals and standards,

highlighting errors made when the evidence was collected.

They do find a new trace of DNA on the knife

from Sollecito's kitchen that hasn't been tested.

However, they argue, it's too small to be of use.

This report helps the judge focus his decision

on whether there is reasonable doubt about the DNA samples.

For Meredith's mother and the rest of her family,

the hearings are agonizing.

Everything that Meredith must've felt that night,

everything she went through,

the fear and the terror, and not knowing why.

And she didn't deserve that.

No one deserves that.

(dramatic music)

October the 3rd, 2011.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito await their fate

for the second time.

(judge speaking Italian)

Not guilty.

(gentle bright music)

There's sufficient reasonable doubt

for Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito

to be released immediately.

(crowd muttering in Italian)

I'm Deanna Knox, Amanda Knox's sister,

and I just have a few words on behalf of our family.

We are thankful that Amanda's nightmare is over.

She has suffered for four years

for a crime that she did not commit.

That Raffaele had nothing to do

with the murder of that poor girl, Meredith Kercher,

who remains in our hearts.

Some in the gathering crowd

becoming increasingly agitated about the verdicts.

(Giancarlo speaking Italian)

There were people out on the stairs

in front of the courthouse,

and for a long time they yelled, "Shame on you."

(crowd yelling) (crowd whistling)

(dramatic music)

A dark sedan ferries Amanda Knox away

to a safe house deep in the Italian countryside

for an emotional reunion with relatives

after almost four years in jail.

While Meredith's family is left stunned

and pained by the acquittal.

Meredith has been almost forgotten in all of it.

The media photos aren't really of her.

There is not a lot about what actually happened

in the beginning, so it's very difficult

to keep her memory alive in all of this.

The media's photos will be of Amanda Knox

arriving home at Seattle Airport.

I'm really overwhelmed right now.

I was looking down from the airplane

and it seemed like everything wasn't real.

What's important for me to say is just thank you

to everyone who has believed in me,

who has defended me, who has supported my family.

(solemn music)

Amanda finds a home

in Seattle's International District

and returns to the University of Washington

to study creative writing.

She starts writing a book about her experience,

reportedly receiving a $4 million advance,

although claims that all of the money

goes on legal expenses.

(camera shutter clicking)

Back in Italy, Rudy Guede is still in prison,

where he's been beaten up by inmates.

He has begun studying to build himself a future

and will soon be eligible for parole.

His lawyer claims that Rudy Guede has been made a scapegoat.

I am convinced Rudy is innocent.

Rudy was lynched by the others, by the media.

He was the weakest link.

He was the weak one who had to pay for them all.

(Valter speaking Italian)

In the sentence, it says he is not the actual murderer.

It says he didn't handle the knife, or anything,

but because the judge found

he took part in the group violence, he is guilty.

(Valter speaking Italian)

For a while, this seems like the end of the story,

but fate, or the Italian justice system,

has another twist in store.

Now it's the turn of the prosecution to appeal,

and on the 26th of March 2013, Italy's highest court,

known as the Court of Cassation, orders a new trial,

overturning Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito's acquittals.

They say the first appeal did not debate

many of the 10,000 pages from the first trial,

focusing too much on the DNA evidence.

(Francesco speaking Italian)

The Court of Cessation was very, very harsh.

It commented on the lack of logic,

the lack of coordination in the reasoning.

It was severe, almost devastating, for the judges.

(Francesco speaking Italian)

(dramatic music)

September the 30th 2013, the second appeal begins.

This time, the drama switches

to the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence.

Amanda Knox isn't in the courtroom.

She refuses to travel from America,

and defends her decision on television.

Only Raffaele Sollecito is present in court.

He makes a plea to the judge and jury.

(Raffaele speaking Italian)

Unlike in the appeals court,

this judge orders a police forensics lab in Rome

to test the new trace of DNA found on the kitchen knife.

It's a minuscule amount

from where the blade meets the handle.

The new test finds that the DNA matches Amanda Knox.

Prosecutors say it further proves her involvement

in the murder, but the defense says

the most likely explanation is that Amanda

used the knife when staying at Raffaele's apartment.

(dramatic music)

The 30th of January, 2014.

Six years and two months after Meredith Kercher's murder.

The second appeal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito

is coming to a close, the judgment watched by the world.

Sollecito doesn't wait to hear the verdict,

speeding off in a taxi.

Shortly after 9:30 pm local time,

after deliberating for more than 12 hours,

the judge and jury enter the hall.

(judge speaking Italian)

This time, an even longer sentence.

28 years and six months for Amanda Knox,

25 years for Raffaele Sollecito.

The lawyers give their verdict.

(Guilia speaking Italian)

(Francesco speaking Italian)

In court, the victim of Amanda Knox's original slander,

Patrick Lumumba, is relieved.

He's been awarded 40,000 euros compensation.

(Patrick speaking Italian)

Raffaele Sollecito has disappeared.

But the next day, police find him near the Austrian border.

His lawyers say he wasn't trying to flee the country.

He's expected to remain free until his final appeal.

(gentle bright music)

Back in Florence, Meredith's sister and brother

face the media and are asked

if they think Amanda Knox should be extradited

from America to Italy.

If somebody's found guilty and convicted of a murder,

if an extradition law exists between those two countries,

then I don't see why they wouldn't.

I imagine it would set a difficult precedent

if a country such as the US didn't choose

to go along with laws that they themselves uphold

when extraditing convicted criminals from other countries.

It probably leaves them in a strange position not to.

Knox and Sollecito will appeal one last time.

Then, if the verdict is upheld, Italy will decide

whether to request Amanda Knox's extradition.

It's not the end of it.

It's another chapter, moving things forward.

Anybody losing anyone close to them is hard.

Losing somebody so young and the way that we did,

is, obviously, a hundred times worse.

And then on top of that,

to have all the media attention

that has gone on for so long

just makes it very, very difficult to cope with.

Even if the guilty verdicts are upheld on appeal,

Amanda Knox has vowed to keep fighting to clear her name.

After her conviction, she releases a written statement,

saying she is frightened and saddened

by this unjust verdict, followed by this photograph

which reads, "We are innocent."

I think we all definitely want some form of closure,

or even just having it almost at an end

of the Italian justice system, and knowing

that that's the final decision,

and then we can all start to remember just Meredith,

rather than focusing on who did it or what happened.

(somber music)

Six years have passed

since the death of Meredith Kercher.

So, are Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend,

Raffaele Sollecito guilty?

On January the 30th, 2014,

the Italian justice system said yes.

But with another appeal in the pipeline,

the hard reality for Meredith's family

is that their ordeal is still not over.

(somber music continues)

(somber music continues)