by Bondbabe007
This is very strange, I know, but really what happened is as confusing to me as it is to everyone else. Amanda Knox, November 6, 2007
Requesting pen and paper at the local police station in Perugia, Amanda Knox recorded a written statement concerning the homicide of her British roommate, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher. It was the evening of November 6, and Amanda had offered two prior statements in the early morning hours, the first one timestamped at 1:45 am. She wrote a second statement at 5:45 am. Already placed under arrest, Knox wanted to write another statement for police, and it was a long one. Officer Rita Ficarra, Head of the Narcotics Division, testified that Amanda Knox told her everything would be explained in the statement, but Ficarra said it was, in fact…rambling. Was it rambling? Read some key excerpts and decide for yourself. A full transcript is linked below. Keep in mind that this is the statement allowed as evidence during her 2009 trial for the murder of Meredith. The other two were not.
Closing arguments are quickly approaching in the Florence appellate court and will be heard on November 25-26, 2013. Let’s time travel back to November exactly six years ago.
On the evening of Monday, November 5, 2007, Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox were dining with Sollecito’s friends at their nearby apartment,”trying to have a bit of normality” according to Knox. She had enjoyed a nice respite from police interviews, going back to class at the University for Foreigners and catching up on her sleep. While still dining that night, Raffaele received a call from police headquarters requesting that he come in for an interview to clarify information he had previously provided. He agreed, but took his time, declaring that he didn’t intend to rush his meal. When he arrived at the station shortly after 10:00 pm, he was accompanied by Amanda Knox. She complained of being tired. Monica Napoleoni, Head of the Homicide Division, told her to go home since she was not scheduled for an interview and had no reason to be there. Insisting that she didn’t want to be alone, Knox made herself comfortable in the waiting room.
Although she brought homework along, Amanda soon became restless. At 10:30, she phoned her roommate Filomena Romanelli. She had been calling both of her Italian roommates recently suggesting that the three of them get a new place together. Filomena and Laura Mezzetti were stuck with the task of communicating with the owner of the cottage, negotiating to terminate their lease in what was now a crime scene. Neither Laura nor Filomena wanted to continue living with Amanda. In the days after Meredith’s murder, Knox’s behavior perplexed both them and Meredith’s friends. In the police waiting room, all of them had noticed it. While they struggled to maintain their composure, often breaking down in tears, Amanda seemed oddly disconnected, putting on a playful, flirtatious and exhibitionist display for all to see. The roommates and English friends later testified that Knox entertained herself by pulling goofy faces at Raffaele with crossed eyes and protruding tongue. The lovers passed notes, whispered and kissed, and even went so far as to lie down together intertwined which even captured the attention of the officers.
Of particular interest to police was Amanda’s familiarity with details unknown to anyone except the killer(s). According to sworn testimony, Amanda was observed talking in a loud voice to the room in general that Meredith’s throat had been cut, she had died slowly and painfully, bleeding to death from a neck wound, and her body had been found by her “closet.” In fact, Meredith’s body had been moved from the closet area closer to the bedroom door where she was found when Filomena’s boyfriend broke down the door on November 2nd. No one yet knew this.
Overwhelmed with shock and grief, the Italian girls were astounded by Amanda’s cool demeanor and the fact she displayed no apparent grief over Meredith’s brutal murder.
Around 11:00 pm that Monday night at the police station, officers observed Amanda on the floor near the elevator performing gymnastic-type moves. Both Napoleoni and Ficarra later testified that officers reported seeing her doing cartwheels and splits. Knox still denies doing cartwheels, but acknowledges doing splits and “stretching.” Officer Ficarra put a stop to it, and asked her if she’d be willing to speak to officers voluntarily in a witness interview. Amanda agreed.
By this time, around 11:30 pm, Raffaele had changed his story and was no longer supporting Amanda’s alibi. When advised of this new development, Knox quickly offered an entirely new and different scenario. Having searched her cell phone, the police had asked her about a text exchange from the evening of the murder, the text that prompted Knox to name Patrick Lumumba as the murderer and to place herself at the cottage while Meredith was being killed. By 1:45 am on November 6th, Amanda had signed off on this false accusation sending an innocent man to jail for two weeks while police focused on investigating him. Her two written statements were allowed as evidence in Patrick Lumumba’s successful lawsuit against her for defamation and calunnia, the latter a more serious charge related to obstructing a criminal investigation. For this offense, Knox was found guilty, a sentence ratified by the Supreme Court. While she did serve three years in prison, she never paid the victim the court-ordered financial penalties.
There has been much controversy about Knox’s claims of being deprived of food and water in an “hours-long” session by “numerous” interrogators. There were three people in the interview room with Amanda. They were Officer Ficarra, a male officer by the name of Ivano, and the translator, Anna Donnino. Donnino arrived around 12:30 am, and she testified to seating herself by Amanda in the room already occupied by Ficarra and Ivano.
Anna Donnino’s testimony has been translated into English. She testified that there was no physical abuse, that Knox was treated well, offered tea and snacks from the vending machine. Considering her late dinner the previous evening, was Amanda in danger of starving? Was she physicslly abused? You decide.
As for the purported hours-long interrogation, Amanda Knox’s interview as a witness officially started at 12:30 am, concluding at 1:45 am with her official date-stamped statement accusing Patrick Lumumba as the murderer. The translator testified that Knox quickly accused Lumumba with no pressure from police.
In her written statement later that evening of November 6th following her arrest, Amanda recalls the night of the murder:
In my mind there are things I remember and things that are confused.
What created her confusion? Here she talks about spending the evening at Raffaele’s. She states they watched the movie Amelie on Raffaele’s computer.
…after that I believe we relaxed in his room together. Perhaps I checked my e-mail. Perhaps I read or studied or perhaps I made love to Raffaele. In fact, I think I did make love with him.
Really? A 20-year-old young woman newly infatuated with her lover du jour will remember having sex with him a few days prior. Knox is not shy about sex, recalling many sordid details in her memoir. In every media interview, she needs to bring up sex. Even in a murder investigation, she inserts unrelated intimate details. We get it. Amanda Knox has a sex life!
…but I do remember that we had a shower and we washed ourselves for a long time. He cleaned my ears. He dried and combed my hair.
T-M-I. Or is it? A long shower, washing blood out of hair and ears would be memorable, deeply imprinted on the brain.
…Raffaele and I ate fairly late I think about 11:00 in the evening…After dinner I noticed there was BLOOD on Raffaele’s hand, but I was under the impression that it was BLOOD from the fish. [Emphasis mine.]
Blood was on her mind. Blood was on Raffaele’s hand. Sinister. Disturbing.
These things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things that happened or are just dreams my head has made up to try to answer the questions in my head and the questions I am being asked.
Knox has an unusual habit of referring to her head as if it has an independent life of its own.
But I also want to tell the truth as best I can.
Here Amanda begins to build upon her “best truth” theme. Why does she need to qualify truth?
She goes on to speak of her text communication with her boss, Le Chic owner Patrick Lumumba. Explaining that Patrick cancelled her work shift that night, she acknowledges that Raffaele had disputed her alibi of responding to Lumumba’s text from Raffaele’s apartment. She says she was at her boyfriend’s apartment in his bed all night. He says she wasn’t. AWKWARD!
Next, Amanda describes being present in the cottage when she claims Patrick murdered Meredith in her bedroom. It is nothing less than chilling.
Amanda Knox never recanted in the following weeks, never bothered to let prison authorities, police, or anyone but her mother know that Patrick was innocent. He sat in jail for two long weeks until the police investigation and forensics set him free. By that time, the damage was done to his reputation and his livelihood. He was forced to close Le Chic.
In my mind I saw Patrik [sic] 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…these things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things that happened or are just dreams my head has made up to try to answer the questions in my head and the questions I am being asked. But the truth is I am unsure about the truth…
Is Amanda haunted by Meredith’s death scream? Neighbors testified about a piercing, heartbreaking scream heard around the time Meredith was attacked. At that time, no one else knew about the scream.
Knox continues to meander along the path of “was-it-a-dream, an illusion, maybe-I-can’t-remember, but it’s-my-best-truth,” and lost along this crooked path she remains.
Read what she has to say about the following morning when she returned to the house.
I know the police are confused as to why it took me so long to call someone after I found the door to my house open and blood in the bathroom. The TRUTH [emphasis mine] is I wasn’t sure what to think but I definitely didn’t think the worst…
Front door wide open, smeared dried blood in the bathroom, bloody bathmat that she didn’t hesitate to use, an unflushed toilet in her absent roommates’ bathroom that she didn’t bother flushing. Why worry? Peace out, everyone.
,,,and I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik but I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me that [sic] what I said before that I stayed at Raffaele’s house.
Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith’s death, even though it is contrasting, are the BEST TRUTH that I have been able to think.
Do innocent people speak like this? Do innocent people use language acknowledging their “involvement” in a murder victim’s death?
For those who are preparing to reignite the time-worn argument that she wrote her statements under duress following grueling hours of interrogation, mistreatment, food and water deprivation…sigh, please re-group, re-think and just don’t go there.
True fact: Amanda was in the police interview room from 11:30 pm to 1:45 am. The official interview began upon arrival of translator Anna Donnino at 12:30 am. At 1:45 am, Knox signed her statement.
Fast forward to November 2013. Is Amanda Knox still parsing her best truth as she knows it, her mind still conflicted by things that she remembers, things that are confused? Based on recent interviews, the answer is …yes.
If she wanted to tell the world “I did not kill Meredith,” “I am here to tell ONE truth,” she would have been in that Florence courtroom on September 30, 2013. She would make it her mission to take the stand. She would speak directly to the court, the world, Meredith’s family, apologize to them and assure them she will honor their wishes to stay away from Meredith’s grave. She did none of these things. Instead she selects carefully screened media allies to tell whatever is her latest and best truth. She disrespects Meredith’s family by her disturbing, stalker-like preoccupation with them and her insistence that they visit Meredith’s grave together, that they “heal” together. This is not reality-based language. It is the language of delusion and deceit and an unrelenting arrogance.
It’s not too late for Amanda Knox to speak truth. The place to do it is at her own appeal in Florence, Italy, Courtroom 32 in the Palace of Justice, presiding Judge Alessando Nencini.
Read Amanda Knox’s entire written statement here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1570225/Transcript-of-Amanda-Knoxs-note.html
For facts and evidence, read here:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Main_Page
Click below to view Bondbabe007′s previous posts on the Amanda Knox – Meredith Kercher case:
Hard Knocks for Amanda Knox: The Case Against the American Girl
The Double DNA Knife: The Vindication of Amanda Knox?
Rudy Guede: Lone Wolf Assailant or Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito Accomplice
About Bondbabe007: I am an avid trial watcher, seeker of justice, true crime follower and blogger. I have a particular interest in victims, so frequently forgotten or overlooked in contrast to the narcissism and flamboyance of many perpetrators. For example, my mind gravitated towards Meredith Kercher. The contrast between Amanda Knox and Meredith was striking and I was intrigued by witness testimony regarding their brief (two-month) relationship. I often had this desire to intervene and change the outcome for Meredith. This happens with most cases that interest me and I wonder if others experience something similar. I welcome comments and feedback.