Amanda Knox appears on stage to talk about her life following Meredith Kercher’s death at a question and answer session with members of the public
Amanda Knox has opened her heart at an extraordinary emotional event to promote her documentary. At one point she was close to tears. She described being “haunted” by her treatment after being falsely accused of being involved in the death of British student Meredith Kercher.
She said she was devastated when first jailed she said: “I was looking at 26 years. I thought I’d never have children and I’d always wanted to be a mother.”
And she said sadly: “I’m constantly compared to my dead friend.” Amanda came to Meredith’s home city of London for the first time in a question and answer session with members of the public. She even revealed she had been in Chester making a podcast about Lucy Letby – the nurse convicted of killing seven babies.
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And she went on: “You always feel like you’ve got something to prove – you’ve got to prove your innocence for the rest of your life. There is anger – there is grief and I still feel angry.
“My life was totally upended. A part of me died in Italy – this deep abyss in me will never go away. I have a love/hate relationship with Italy”.
The mum-of-two added: “I’m kind of over it. I don’t feel the need to explain myself anymore. After 18 years I’m like ‘it’s not me – it’s not my problem now.’
“There’s negative attention and scrutiny – everywhere I go I get scrutinised.” She recalled: “I was a prey animal – I was being hunted down by the justice system and the media. Everything I said was always portrayed in the worst light.
She talked about confronting the Italian prosecutor and thinking of writing him a letter saying: “Dear Mr Prosecutor – what the f**k”.
She added: “I don’t think my prosecutor was evil: he was just wrong. He was a nightmarish figure who had destroyed my life.” She said: “There were large gaping holes in the prosecution’s theory above all – motive.
“I had absolutely no motive to have commit this crime. I had no history of violence, no history of problems with my room-mate and when it came down to the verdict – the way the courts explained it was that I had committed evil for the sake of evil – spontaneously. I had decided that night to be evil.”
Amanda was speaking at the Greenwich Picturehouse in south east London, at the event organised by the London Innocence Project, in front of a crowd of 50 people who had queued patiently outside beforehand to enter the auditorium.
They were due to also watch the documentary “Mouth of the Wolf” but the screening was called off at the last minute because of licensing issues.
The documentary, directed by her husband Christopher Robinson, captures her return to the scene where Meredith was murdered. It also features original songs sung by Amanda
To her supporters, 38-year-old Amanda is a wronged woman who spent four years in an Italian prison for a crime she did not commit. But to her critics, she is seen as someone who has made money from Meredith’s death.
The Kercher family’s lawyer Francesco Maresca said Amanda was turning her wrongful conviction into a money spinner. “It seems to me and the family that every six months or so Knox makes another media initiative be it a podcast, interview, documentary or film,” Mr Maresca said.
“To be frank, enough is enough, they have really had more than is reasonable of it now, they and myself just don’t comprehend why she keeps on doing things like this and just can’t leave this alone.”
She was acquitted by Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation in 2015. Meredith was a popular student studying at the University of Leeds when she took up an exchange place in Perugia.
In September 2007, she moved into a flat with two Italian women and Amanda, then a 20-year-old from Seattle attending the University for Foreigners. On the night of November 1, 2007, Meredith was murdered in her bedroom. Her body was found on the floor, covered by a blood-soaked duvet. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed in the neck.
While Italian police examined the murder scene, Amanda was photographed kissing her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, outside the flat.
The couple were taken in for questioning within days of the murder. Amanda later said she was interrogated without a lawyer or a qualified interpreter present and was bullied and physically struck by police.
During that interrogation, she made a statement implicating Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese owner of the bar where she worked, in the murder.
Lumumba was arrested and held for two weeks before being released. In 2009, Amanda was convicted of Meredith’s murder and sentenced to 26 years in prison. Sollecito received 25 years. They were later both acquitted.
A third defendant, Rudy Guede, whose DNA and bloody footprints were found throughout the crime scene, was tried separately and convicted of sexual assault and murder.
