commentary by Patrick H. Moore
We all know that as we get older, time seems to accelerate; one day follows hard on the heels of its precursor and a month may seem like a mere week or two. Looking back, I seem to recall that when I was in my twenties, the time seemed to pass at the slow pace of the moon, and a single workday could seem to drag on interminably.
But what about if you’re a young woman, now in your mid-twenties, and you’ve been facing murder charges for well over six years, and that you spent four of those years locked up in an Italian prison. What if you’re Seattle native Amanda Knox?
The “big shoe” has dropped twice now (two convictions) and although you’re home in Seattle, your appeal of the latest conviction is in its early stages and is not expected to be ruled upon until next year. How long does a day last for you? Does a day seem like a week? A fortnight? Even a month? Does a month seem like a year? And what about those nights when you can’t sleep (unless of course you’re one of those lucky souls who can always sleep, no matter how much pressure you’re under).
And as the days crawl along like a snail inching its way across 40 miles of bad road, you know in both your heart and mind that your former boyfriend and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito is in the process of distancing himself from you in a desperate attempt to save himself from more than 20 years in an Italian prison.
So although it must hurt terribly, you probably weren’t really surprised when on Tuesday at a press conference in Rome, your former boyfriend and his lawyer, the powerful Giulia Bongiorno, took dramatic steps to distance himself from you still further in a manner that clearly implies that you just might be guilty of Meredith Kercher’s murder.
The Local: Italy’s News in English reports:
His lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, said during the press conference in Rome that Sollecito “spent the night with Amanda” but was not with her during part of the evening.
The addition to Sollecito’s defense comes as lawyers prepare an appeal to Italy’s Supreme Court against January’s verdict by a Florence court.
While the Italian always claimed Knox “spent the night” with him, he never said they spent the evening together – which is when the crime took place, Bongiorno said.
“Whenever he described what happened that afternoon, and evening, he always said he spent the night with Amanda,” Bongiorno said.
“But for the entire first part of the evening, they were not together. It’s this first part of the evening that’s new [to his defence].”
This revelation, it appears, could be extremely damning for Knox. Bongiorno appears to have been deliberately vague with respect to specific times, probably in order to plant the seed of doubt without giving too much away. If I’m not mistaken, it’s generally assumed that Ms. Kercher was murdered sometime between when she arrived home at her Perugia flat at around 9:15 pm and midnight.
“But for the entire first part of the evening, they were not together. It’s this first part of the evening that’s new [to his defence].”
At the press conference, the redoubtable (causing or deserving great fear and respect) Bongiorno stated that Raffaele’s appeal “would revolve around a text message which Knox claims to have sent while with Sollecito at his house the night of the murder.”
“This text message, according to the court’s own ruling, was not sent from his house. Therefore the pair were not together,” she said.
Odd that Raffaele’s lawyer would be relying on a ruling by the court, the same court that just convicted her client, to “hang” Knox, but what the heck? Anything to deflect the blame away from Sollecito and onto Knox.
Sollecito is reportedly relying on the log from his home computer to prove he was home at the time of the killing.
Sollecito (wouldn’t you know it?) was also at the press conference. He again professed his innocence, saying, “I’m not here to change my story; only a crazy person or a criminal would do that.”
“I am neither a crazy person or a criminal, I’m an innocent person,” he added.
Note that although he and his lawyer are not about to change his story, they show no hesitation in changing Ms. Knox’s story.
When he was asked if he knew Knox’s whereabouts during “the first part of the evening”, Sollecito said his concentration was on defending himself and that could not vouch for where she was.
He also said he was in love with her but that, ultimately, she was a “stranger”. Now what the heck does that mean? That she’s now a “stranger”? Or that his American lover was always a “stranger?”
Sollecito was careful, however, to point out that he and his family have always believed, and continue to believe, in Knox’s innocence.
Of course. Clever. If Knox was not with Sollecito at the time of the murder and if he can prove based on his computer log that he was at his residence at the time of the murder, he cannot possibly be guilty. Of course, this makes one wonder why this evidence was not placed front and center previously.
* * * * *
As is well known, Kercher was found dead in the apartment she shared with Knox on November 1, 2007.
Knox and Sollecito were originally sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison for killing Kercher at the first trial. They were acquitted on appeal in 2011 after spending four years in prison, but then were once again found guilty by a Florence court in January of this year.
Just for shits and grins, let’s take a quick look at the Florence court’s reasoning, which resembles a lurid teenage love story/murder mystery.
First, utilizing what may be the shakiest DNA evidence in the history of DNA evidence, the court said that there was DNA proof that three people were at the murder scene: Knox, Sollecito and the sleazy Rudy Guede, who before long will have finished up his fast-track sentence.
Somewhere within its 337 page explanation, the court opined that Kercher was frequently irritated by Knox’s behaviour and that when the Seattle girl invited Guede into the apartment that night the situation escalated. (Where is the evidence that Knox invited Guede into the apartment that night? and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, how could Raffaele have been there at all if he was back at his apartment “enjoying” his computer.
The court writes that Guede “behaved impolitely” (I’ll buy that) and that an annoyed Kercher interrupted an “intimate moment” between Knox and Sollecito to complain.
Why is poor Meredith so frequently described as “annoyed”? She always looks smiley and happy, very sweet, in her photographs, sympathique et souriant, as my French cousins would say.
“The cohabitation had reached such a level of exasperation” that the argument quickly escalated, with Guede, Knox and Sollecito “collaborating to immobilize Meredith and use violence against her,” sayeth the learned court.
Wait. How can “cohabitation reach a level of exasperation”? Well, I suppose it can if it’s constantly being interrupted by an intrusive moralist. But how could Knox “cohabitate” with Raffaele if he’s not there? I realize the dude is proving to be a bit of a “shape-shifter”, but I don’t believe even he could be in two places at once.
The court goes on to claim that the nasty Guede, whose DNA was found inside Kercher’s body, was driven by “sexual instinct”, while Knox and Sollecito “wanted to prove their power over Meredith and humiliate her”.
Stop. If Guede was driven by “sexual instinct”, I would think he would want to merely have sex with the poor victim, not murder her, but since he apparently did murder her, I’m clearly wrong on this account. And we know from following various criminal cases and sex and death often conjoin in an unholy alliance.
But why on earth would Amanda and Raffaele want to kill the poor young lady “to prove their power over her and humiliate her.” You can’t humiliate a dead person. And besides, according to Raffaele and Lawyer Bongiorno, Sollecito was back at his crib playing with his computer when the crime occurred.
Then the court really gets down, stating that the larger of the two knives, “which produced the wound on the left part of the neck and from which spurted most of the blood which caused Meredith Kercher’s death, was held by Amanda Knox.” (I told you the court has turned this into a lurid teenage romance/murder mystery.
And then the Court claims that the other knife was wielded by Sollecito, who cut through the victim’s bra strap, inadvertently planting the only piece of DNA evidence which links him to the crime scene.
Investigators have long insisted that 47 cuts and bruises on Kercher and the apparent use of two different knives in the attack point to more than one killer.
I have to admit that this makes some sense. On the other hand, in a recent American case, brain-damaged Roxanne Jeskey did enough damage to her poor dead husband (including anal incisions) to make it seem like a whole army of pervert murderers did the poor man in.
Prosecutors had previously alleged that Kercher was killed in a drug-fuelled sex attack, claiming Knox delivered the final blows while Sollecito and Guede held the victim down.
Yeah! And I’m King Tut returned from the dead.
But the Florence court ruled out that theory, saying that Kercher was not the type of girl to have engaged in drug-induced sex parties. This is probably true.
* * * * *
Where does this leave us? I’m not sure. But I am quite certain that as the long, slow days stretch into nighttime and she strives to hold onto some shred of hope, whether or not she had anything to do with Ms. Kercher’s murder, Amanda Knox is getting sadder and sadder and sadder…