A warm All Things Crime Blog welcome to our newest contributor, Michael Mills. Here Michael provides us with a compelling hypothesis into how and why Rudy Guede acted alone in the murder of Meredith Kercher.
by Michael Mills
I would like to suggest an alternative hypothesis to explain some of the anomalies about this case.
The basic elements of my hypothesis are:
1. The murder of Kercher was committed by Guede acting alone, after having been admitted to the house by Kercher, with whom he was acquainted.
2. The murder was discovered some later time by Knox, after she returned to the house. Fearing that the murder had been committed by someone known to both her and Kercher, and that her likely connection to the murderer might cause her to be suspected, she and Sollecito carried out a partial clean-up of the crime scene, and staged the break-in in order to deflect attention away from anyone connected to her.
In developing that hypothesis, I am relying to a considerable degree on Guede’s first statement to the German police on 21 November, after his arrest in Germany and before his extradition to Italy. The statement has probative value since it was made to the German police, who had no vested interest in the case, and before the Italian police could get hold of him and start to influence his story.
In that first statement, Guede claimed that he had been admitted to the house by Kercher, with whom he was acquainted, and that they had had low-level sexual contact. He describes Kercher finding money missing from her desk, and going into Knox’s room to search for it. At that point in his statement, he declares that Knox was not there, obviously to explain how Kercher could have searched Knox’s room.
I find nothing incredible about Guede’s claim that Kercher was acquainted with him and admitted him to the house willingly. He had previously visited the house, and was acquainted with the boys who lived in the bottom apartment, including Kercher’s boyfriend.
That claim is an adequate explanation of how he got into the house, assuming that he did not break in, a reasonable assumption given the indications that the signs of break-in were manufactured.
His story of having consensual low-level sexual contact with Kercher is less credible, and probably designed to explain away how his DNA came to be on her body. It is, however, not impossible; the only reason why it has been dismissed out of hand is because of the idealised picture of Kercher painted by her family and friends.
The story of Kercher searching for missing money is also unlikely; its purpose was probably cover the fact that he himself had taken money from Kercher’s purse after the murder (his bloody fingerprints were found on and in that purse).
Guede also claimed to have had a conversation with Kercher, in which she complained about Knox smoking hashish. It is difficult to see how they could have had anything other than a very limited conversation, since Guede reportedly knew limited English and Kercher’s Italian was also limited.
Guede then claims that he was in the toilet for an extended period of time, during which Kercher was killed by an unknown intruder. Hearing her screams, he stumbled out of the toilet, pulling up his pants. He sees an unknown man shorter than himself and grapples with him, but the man gets away and runs out the door to the house.
Guede claims he found Kercher badly wounded and dying, and that he tried to comfort her. He claims she tried to say something to him, and that he attempted to write down what she said with a finger dipped in her blood. After she finally died, he left the house and went home, telling nobody what had happened.
It is fairly obvious that Guede’s account of remaining with Kercher and trying to comfort her is an attempt to explain away the evidence of his having been in the room, e.g., fingerprints and DNA. Nevertheless, a lot of the graphic detail in his account of her dying is probably real, based on his actually having been in the room and having seen her die.
It is most likely that Guede himself committed the murder, and that descriptions of the unknown man and his actions are simply a projection of himself and his own actions; e.g., after killing Kercher and stealing money from her purse, he walked straight out of the house, exactly as he described the unknown man doing.
A further indication that it was Guede who committed the murder is that he provides no clue as to how the mysterious man gained entry to the house. Since the only person to have been admitted to the house by Kercher was himself, and there is no credible evidence of a genuine forced entry, then the only persons who could have been in the house at the time of the murder were Kercher and Guede.
The most crucial element in Guede’s statement to the German police is his affirmation that the murder was committed by one man acting alone. Although he claims that that one man was someone other than himself, that is unlikely to be true; the murderer was almost certainly himself, a person who had been admitted to the house by Kercher.
It is claimed by the Prosecution that one person could not have subdued Kercher since she was very strong and had learned karate. That claim is again based on the idealised image of Kercher painted by her family and friends; there is no reason to doubt that a fairly athletic young basketballer such as Guede could have subdued and killed Kercher, particularly if he took her by surprise.
The most likely motive for Guede killing Kercher was sexual; i.e., he wanted to have sexual activity with her, but she refused. That could possibly explain why the killer continued to cut her body, in addition to inflicting the fatal neck-wounds.
Guede’s actions after leaving the house also indicate a criminal personality capable of murder. He just went home, and then spent the night in a disco and bar. The next day he left for Germany, indicating guilt and an attempt to evade justice.
In summary, according to his own admissions, when he entered the house, Kercher was alive, and when she left it she was dead. Logically, the murder was committed between the time he entered the house and the time he left it. He explicitly states that Knox was not there. If we dismiss his claim that the murder was committed by an unknown man who gained access by unknown means, then he and Kercher were the only persons present in the house from the time of his arrival until the time of his departure, and it therefore follows that he alone committed the murder.
In my next post, I will offer a theory about the subsequent actions of Sollecito and Knox.
Michael Mills is a retired Australian Public Servant. He is 66 years old, has a keen interest in history and current affairs, and posts regularly on online history forums. Like many, he was appalled by the recent re-conviction of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, and after substantial intensive research, he has developed the theory of the case that he sets forth herein.