Who m*rder*d Meredith Kercher? (2022)

[bunniefuu]

After nearly eight years

of torturous court proceedings,

and twice being convicted of

brutally murdering
her flat mate,

Amanda Knox is finally free.

I'm incredibly grateful...

For the justice I've received,

for the support that
I've had from everyone.

From my family, from
my friend, to strangers,

to people like you...

I, it...

You've saved my
life, and I'm so grateful,

and I...

I'm so grateful to
have my life back.

Multiple
convictions and appeals,

only for Amanda Knox
and her then boyfriend,

Raffaele Sollecito...

To be found innocent

of sexually assaulting
and murdering

the 21-year-old English
exchange student

Meredith Kercher.

Meredith was my friend.

And...

It's...

She deserved so
much in this life.

I...

I'm the lucky one.

Now those at the
heart of this tragedy speak.

Four years prison.

Six months of
solitary confinement.

And still today, I
feel that bitterness.

We filmed Rudy Guede,

the only person held
responsible for the crime,

now out of prison
after serving 14 years.

He still insists he's innocent.

The fact that
he is walking free,

and still no answers
for the family...

Is nothing short of
an absolute outrage.

Ever since Meredith's m*rder,

her family have clung
to the hope that one day

they would get justice.

What happened to my
daughter Meredith is...

Every parent's nightmare.

Of something so
terrible happening.

When basically, she
was in the safest place.

Her bedroom.

The most
controversial m*rder trial

of the modern age,

eight years of torment
for those caught up in it.

And still the question
is being asked.

Who m*rder*d Meredith Kercher?

Meredith Kercher walks home from

a quiet evening with friends

along the ancient
streets of Perugia.

The hilltop city is
normally bustling with student.

But on this national
holiday, it's deserted.

It's a dark place.

It's an intense and
somewhat claustrophobic city.

Meredith
regularly calls her parents,

and worries about drug dealers.

At 8:56PM,
she tries to call home.

But no one answers.

At 9PM,
Meredith is seen on CCTV,

arriving back at her
empty student house

that she shares
with Amanda Knox.

Meredith's phone
registers its last call at 10,

to her British bank.

But whoever calls fails to
put in the UK dialling code.

And the call doesn't go through.

The next morning,

Meredith's body is
found in her bedroom,

covered by a blanket

with two brutal
wounds to her neck,

five smaller cuts, and
more than a dozen bruises.

Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini

takes charge of
the investigation,

and is soon convinced
there were multiple attackers...

Led by Amanda Knox.

I left New York
thinking she was guilty,

and that I was going to
write about an American girl

who had turned into a psychopath
the night after Halloween.

And slashed her
roommate to death.

I believed that's what
I was going to find.

Mignini weaves Amanda Knox

and Raffaele Sollecito into
a complex conspiracy theory.

A sex game that
went horribly wrong.

With a man they didn't know.

Rudy Guede.

It felt like Mignini
was making a big jump

from going from,

"Here's the m*rder
scene and what we know,"

and then making little
leaps of faith in between that.

So that there had
been this new orgy,

that they had
approached Meredith

and she had rebuffed
them, and that's why...

She became the victim
of this abhorrent m*rder.

And...

It was a theory he
was very fond of.

But it was just that, a theory.

And the
evidence doesn't stack up.

The knife that's said to
be the m*rder w*apon

doesn't fit most of the wounds.

It's too big.

It is impossible to have made
any of the stabbing wounds

on Meredith.

It could have possibly
created a slashing wound,

but so could a piece of glass.

Prosecutor
Mignini needs two vital bits

of forensic evidence to
put Amanda and Raffaele

at the crime scene.

But that DNA
evidence is unreliable.

They were looking
at extraordinary things

that no one else was doing.

We thought it was...
It was unreliable.

And it was likely...

A...

A contaminant, a transfer,

because they had a lot
of samples from the victim

in the lab, that they
were processing.

And we know you
can get things...

All mixed up in a lab.

Any doubts
are ignored at the first trial.

Amanda Knox
and Raffaele Sollecito

are convicted and face
more than 25 years in prison.

As they begin their appeal,

their case becomes
a press obsession.

Petty domestic arguments
between Amanda and Meredith

are interpreted as
a motive for m*rder.

The media...

Loves...

Attractive female K*llers.

And if you throw some
sex in there, even better.

They love the
catfight aspect of it,

women fighting each other.

She called herself Foxy Knoxy,

which was the...

The girl soccer
team joke about her.

And had nothing to do
with sex, and now it was,

"Foxy Knoxy...
She's, you know...

A sex... A vixen."

After I was accused of m*rder,

people read new meaning
into everything about me.

A hickey on my neck became
a scratch from Meredith

in her last desperate moments.

An awkward encounter
about a dirty toilet

became a m*rder motive.

Male friends I brought home

became mysterious lovers
of questionable character.

It's the dawn of social media.

Soon the controversy
escalates into an online w*r.

It was the first example
of what we have come to expect

in the fake news Internet,
misinformation era.

You had a lot of the things that
we see now as commonplace.

The swarming.

The DIY...

"I know better than the cops.
I know how to solve this."

I've never seen journalists

have to...

To, to dig so deep on a case.

And also I'm
noticing journalists...

Take sides themselves.

In the titanic struggle,

countries are pitted
against each other.

This is
a miscarriage of justice.

I think the President should
absolutely get involved.

And I think people
should boycott Italy.

Lawyer Luca Maori

says the escalating
obsession with Amanda Knox

and his client
Raffaele Sollecito

ensnares the prosecutors.

But it could
have all been avoided.

The evidence of
exactly what happened

is there at the start.

That crime scene
was rich in evidence.

And that was like a jungle.

You know, it had
so much stuff in it.

You had the DNA of the k*ller,

you have the fingerprints
or the palm prints

of the k*ller in
the victim's blood.

You have his shoe print.

You have the entire storey.

It all points
to a far simpler scenario.

Neither
Raffaele nor Amanda's DNA,

none of it,

is found anywhere
at the crime scene.

Not next in any of
the rest of the clothes,

or the, the bra that was clearly
ripped from this poor woman.

And...

You know, Rudy
Guede is everywhere.

Investigators
pride themselves on

having those gut feelings.

But if you find that
you've made a mistake,

which they did when they saw
that Rudy Guede's fingerprints

were in that room.

Admit "oh no" quickly,
because look what happens.

Just barrel ahead
against all evidence,

and keep...

Weaving this weird
web of... Of unlikeliness.

Two years after the m*rder,

the prosecutor's case is
about to be taken apart.

And part of the impetus
is going to come from

the most unlikely source.

Thousands of miles from Italy.

Two years after the m*rder.

The three defendants
convicted of the crime

face decades in prison,
and are preparing appeals.

Amanda Knox is
put on su1c1de watch.

A mental
guard would look in on me

every five minutes.

I wasn't suicidal, but my
insides had already die.

But in America,

there's a growing sense of
confidence regarding her case.

It comes from people
she's never met.

My name's Steve Moore.

I was an FBI agent for 25 years.

I worked just about every
violation that the FBI has.

My wife Michelle watched
some kind of documentary

on the Knox case,

and she was very upset.

She said,

"I wonder if Amanda
Knox really did this."

And my response
was not favourable.

I think my exact words were,

"Since when did you
start listening to the press

and not the prosecutor?"

I told her I could prove
Amanda Knox was guilty

in three pieces of evidence.

Because there was a knife,
there was a confession,

and there was DNA.

One thing you
do in law enforcement,

is you work on
probabilities and statistics.

Women generally
don't k*ll other women,

and when they do,
it's rarely with a knife.

The controversy
also attracts the attention

of leading forensic
biologist Greg Hampikian.

Who spent 20 years
using forensic science

to overturn wrongful
convictions in the United States.

I was in England,

my son was getting married.

To a British girl.

And the British papers were
saying terrible things about,

about the case, and
about Amanda Knox.

So I was like, "well, you know,

I'll just reach out to them."

There were two pieces of
evidence that concerned me.

One was the knife that
the prosecution contended

was the lethal w*apon.

The knife itself
had some problems,

it was not the right size
for three of the incisions

in the neck.

The only
forensic evidence that puts

Amanda Knox at the
m*rder scene is that knife.

But it was found a
quarter of a mile away

in Raffaele's flat.

And it has just one
microscopic trace of DNA

attributed to Meredith.

The entire forensic case
against Amanda Knox

rested on this
unreliable single result.

They tried to repeat it,
they couldn't repeat it.

The other key
prosecution piece of evidence

is Meredith's bra clasp.

The only piece of DNA
evidence that puts Raffaele

at the m*rder scene.

But Greg thinks this
was also contaminated.

They're handling this, this bra
clasp piece from one to another

touching it on the very part
that they're going to swab.

With dirty gloves.

That's the problem
with this case.

Weak evidence,
single piece for each...

Not...

Providence not well documented.

And low amounts of DNA.

But the Italian
courts are about to make

a dramatic decision.

And the end of December,
Rudy Guede's separate appeal

confirms his conviction.

But it drastically
reduces his sentence.

From 30 years to just 16.

The prosecution has no objection

to this guy's sentence
being cut in half,

and we know that he's the
guy with the blood on his hands!

That's incongruous.

One of the
reasons for the reduction

is Rudy Guede's
difficult childhood.

At the age of five,

he left his mother
behind in the Ivory Coast.

Growing up in Italy,

he was often left
to fend for himself.

Professor Claudio Mariani

has worked with Rudy
ever since the appeal.

Trying to help with
his rehabilitation.

Rudy's defence commissions

a psychological report.

Which finds Rudy has
an acute stress disorder.

But it's left to a journalist
to discover the full storey.

We talked to the daughter
of the richest man in Perugia,

who had temporarily adopted
him when he was a teenager.

They met him on
the basketball court,

and they were charmed by him.

And they brought him
home, and said, you know,

"Daddy, can we... You
know, can he live with us?"

They got him tutored,
and they took him on

holidays to London.

And skiing holidays.

And...

As quickly as he was
brought into this magical world,

he was ejected because
they'd found that he'd been lying.

About what he was doing,

and the father
suddenly rejected him.

Rudy's passion is basketball.

But he struggles to find work,

and spends most of his time
hanging out with students.

Digging deeper, Nina
found a very troubled side

to Rudy Guede's character.

We went through
his Facebook friends,

and we started
looking at the people

that he associated with.

And this one guy,
Viktor Linkov said,

"Yeah, I hung out
with him all summer.

He was a pretty cool dude...

But he had these weird tics.

One of which was he didn't
like to sleep in his own house.

Because he told
us that sometimes

he would wake up and
not know where he was."

He had a sleepwalking issue.

And he would wake up
in the middle of the night,

and be a different person.

Like, bark like a dog or
pretend to be a professor.

And they couldn't, like,
sort of shake him out of

these, like, states.

And these are fugue states.

And fugue states are
associated with childhood abuse.

This was not hard discovery.

Like, I wasn't, you know,

this guy was available
to talk to people.

Nobody went and
interviewed the friends.

None of that
is considered by the court.

Rudy Guede's
conviction is later upheld

but the Italian Supreme Court.

With only a brief
examination of the evidence,

the court accepts Rudy's
account of what happened.

Then the court
makes the all-important ruling.

That he acted in a
conspiracy with others.

Sexually assaulting Meredith,

but never actually
holding the knife.

So Rudy essentially
implicates Amanda,

and he says there were
three people at the time.

That court then
takes that as gospel.

Takes that as truth.

And when they accept that,
they put it in the court record

as being fact.

But they establish
it without evidence,

so now you can't
acquit these two

because then you're
looking for two others.

Across the Atlantic,

Amanda is winning in
the court of public opinion.

As doubts about the Italian
forensics grow by the day.

The
President should get involved.

This is, this is a
miscarriage of justice.

I think the President should
absolutely get involved.

And I think people
should Boycott Italy.

They shouldn't go to Italy.

Rudy Guede's
lawyer was one of Perugia's

leading defence
council, Valter Biscotti.

Three years
after Meredith's m*rder.

Amanda Knox and
Raffaele Sollecito's appeal

finally starts in the
same Perugia courtroom.

Once again, Meredith's family
faces months of uncertainty.

[Narrator[ A new
judge starts by saying,

"The only certainty is that
Meredith was m*rder*d."

I felt a breath of fresh air.

In Italy,
unlike the US and the UK,

there's an a*t*matic
right to appeal.

And what's more, it's
like a full second trial.

The judges determine
to reassess all the evidence.

And he orders an independent
review of the DNA evidence.

Once we got it, everything
has been changed.

Completely.

They show off all the flaws
about this investigation.

What certainty
the Kercher family

are clinging to

could soon be ripped from them.

Nearly four years on,

and Meredith's m*rder is about
to become even more mysterious.

Despite all the forensic
evidence at the crime scene,

the independent review finds
there's a fundamental problem

with the two key
pieces of DNA evidence.

A senior scientist,
appointed by the court,

is shocked when she finally
gets to see the m*rder w*apon.

The knife that's meant
to revel Meredith's DNA.

So she can't retest the knife,

and has to be content to
review the original analysis.

The microscopic trace of DNA

that the police claim is
Meredith's is so small,

the test can't be repeated.

These are serious scientists.

Well, I thought
it was brilliant!

Canti and Vecchiotti
went through very carefully

to talk about the amount of DNA,

and it was only one
spot that gave any DNA.

And this is a really
small amount of DNA.

They were far below the
amount of DNA that these kits

have been validated for by
the companies that made them.

And they're not...

Working within internationally
recognised standards.

Meredith Kercher
was repeatedly stabbed.

So if this is the m*rder w*apon,

a great deal of blood
would have been found.

But the blade is clean,

apart from one
microscopic trace of DNA.

And that's not even from blood.

With such a microscopic sample,

it is highly likely the
trace is just contamination.

DNA
transfers very easily, right?

You and I, if we shake hands,

I've got some of
your DNA on my hand.

If I have washed my
hand before I came in here

and you didn't,

my hand might have more
DNA of yours if I swab it

than of mine.

And so...

DNA is very bad at
telling us how it got there.

It's very good at
giving us an identity.

The other key piece of evidence

is the bra clasp.

It's meant to prove Raffaele
was at the m*rder scene.

But there is a serious
problem with that, too.

The police video shows forensics

finding Meredith's bra clasp
on day two of the search.

They even photograph the clasp.

But then, they leave it behind.

45 days later,

forensics finally collect
this vital piece of evidence

from under a rug,
a yard away from

where it was first spotted.

It's a storm.

It's... It's a comedy.

They're holding it,

and they're holding
the very metal part

in their gloves

that supposedly Raffaele's
DNA was taken from.

And not only are they
holding it in gloves,

which you can see
have marks on them,

they're not clean gloves.

They're visually dirty gloves.

Then the first CSI
guy holds it up,

and then he hands it!

Somebody else was like,

"Let me see, let
me see, let me see!"

And they, like,
touch it as well!

And so they're
breaking all these rules.

And then, you know,

they take it, and somebody
puts it on the floor.

To take a picture, I think.

I've never seen
anything like that.

The conclusion
of the independent review,

that these two key pieces of
DNA evidence are worthless,

is a devastating blow to Mignini

and his fellow prosecutor,
Manuela Comodi.

Who was in charge
of the forensics.

Crime scenes are messy places.

Things happen at scenes.

That doesn't mean
we throw evidence out

because people didn't
follow every single rule.

But if that's your one
piece of physical evidence

against a suspect?

Which it was, in this case.

That, that really is a
lousy piece of evidence.

In that same search,

six weeks after the m*rder,

police finally collect
another crucial clue.

Meredith's bloodstained
handbag is still there,

but her credit
cards, house keys,

and 300 euros are missing.

Yet the handbag
would have been key

in discovering whether
the break in was

staged by conspirators

or whether Rudy
Guede acted alone.

If you're a forensic team,

and you're at a crime scene
immediately after a crime,

and the victim's purse us
there with visible blood on it...

That is something you
want. That is priority one.

That is first thing I'm taking.

Because money's in purses.
Other things are in purses.

And if there's a
bloody handprint on it,

you can bet the
m*rder*r's fingerprints

are possibly on it.

After months of legal argument,

the Kercher family
steels themselves for

the Court of Appeal's verdict.

Steve Moore flies from
the US to support Amanda.

I thought it was almost macabre.

It was late, late at night and
a crowd had formed outside.

And I stood in that courtroom,
'cause there were no seats,

for two hours.

Those were the longest
two hours of my life.

The only thing I did was pray.

I saw Amanda weeping
and I started to get terrified,

and I was with a reporter.

And she said, "No, no!"

And...

And then I...

I cried.

I actually screamed out.

I just remember being elated,

"My God, it's over."

You know, "She's
gonna come home."

It is strange to say
that was, but I was sad.

I felt sad because...

I already spent
four years in prison.

So once I get out,

I felt my life is
completely changed.

People will look at me
in a very different way.

You got a sense
that Perugia itself, the town,

was not pleased.

I think that many people there
thought that they were guilty.

Getting Amanda
out of the country

was a little clandestine.

The job was to pull the press
away from Amanda's car.

I was several miles
away at a location

in the middle of nowhere,

and I remember it was
about one in the morning

and I was there with
Amanda's mother.

The Mercedes drives up,

and we got in the
car, and this driver...

Well trained
driver, I can tell you.

Stomped on the gas,
and we were outta there.

There was,

there was just much silent
weeping in the back for a while.

I remember one of the
first things she said was,

"Do you know how long it's
been since I've been in a car?"

And her mom said, "Four years."

She goes, "Yeah,
that's about right."

They're reminding
me to speak in English.

'Cause I'm having
problems with that.

I'm really
overwhelmed right now.

That was...

Deeply emotional, and
I just felt like there was

gonna be no way
for her to process

everything she was feeling,

or communicate
that to the people.

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

to everyone who's
believed in me...

Who's defended me,
who's supported my family.

I just want...

My family's the most
important thing to me right now,

and I just want to
go and be with them.

So thank you...

For being there for me.

For the Kercher family,

the Perugia court's
ruling is devastating.

Their lawyer is
Francesco Maresca.

It was
obviously a bit of a shock.

You know, it is difficult.
We still have no answers.

For us it feels very much
almost like back to square one,

and the search goes on, really,

to find out what
really happened.

With Mignini's theories,

and the key forensic
evidence discredited,

hope for the Kercher
family is fading.

But in Italy, prosecutors
can launch a further appeal

after acquittal.

And the search for
Meredith's m*rder*r

is about to take a
dramatic new turn.

In Amanda Knox's hometown,

the mood is upbeat.

She and Raffaele Sollecito
have been acquitted

after the crucial forensic
evidence was found

to be unreliable.

But the highest court in
Italy is now about to deliver

its verdict in yet
another appeal.

I remember
when Amanda came home.

And I remember we had a
great Thanksgiving there.

You know, I keep asking
about the legal stuff.

Like, "What's gonna happen
at the Supreme Court?"

"Oh, it's just pro forma,
they won't reverse it."

You know, nobody thinks
they're gonna reverse it.

Of course, my gut
is like, "Oh my God."

I've seen reversals
that everybody told me

would never happen.

And I was... I was
a little nervous.

The prosecution won't give up.

Although their case has
been blown out of the water,

they now have another theory.

At the start of
the investigation,

Giuliano Mignini and
his fellow prosecutor

Manuela Comodi,

claim the K*llers cleaned up
the m*rder scene with bleach.

Shortly after the m*rder,

police tested the corridor
with a special chemical

and say they detected
the hidden footprints

of Amanda and Raffaele.

Where did she get her training?

The chemicals do detect
blood. It also detects bleach.

If Amanda saw her
bloody footprints,

and cleaned them up,

it wouldn't be this
perfect imprint of a foot!

It would have been
smudged all over the place

because she would
have cleaned it up.

And if Amanda
didn't clean it up,

you wouldn't be
looking at hidden blood,

you would be
seeing actual blood.

Drops of blood in the bathroom

are more evidence of cleaning.

According to the prosecution.

They claim Amanda took
a shower to wash off blood.

But the
telltale signs of bleaching

aren't there in the corridor
or Meredith's bedroom.

It didn't
look like a clean room to me.

It's just a spurious argument.

I think it comes from,

"How is it possible that
someone commits a crime

and leaves no DNA?"

There is absolutely
no way to go in, and...

And know where all your
DNA is, remove that carefully,

and leave all the other stuff.

And leave no trace of bleaching?

Leave no, no residue
of the bleach, nothing.

Every time we would
answer, like, some storey

that they put forward,
some proposition,

they'd come up with
a new proposition.

The case
involved sexual as*ault.

Yet sperm found on a cushion
placed under Meredith's body

was never tested.

The prosecution says
the stains were old,

and couldn't tie anyone
to being at the scene.

Nobody test
the sperm on the cushion.

And they said
it's not important.

Well, are you serious?

Are you serious?

The endless legal battle

provides constant amm*nit*on
for the competing tabloids.

Now the bitter w*r of
words is increasingly

spilling out
across the Internet.

There was an army of bloggers

reading and checking
every word you wrote.

These are bloggers who, who
were fairly passionate and...

And divided into these
two opposing armies.

It was a kind of
w*r going on online.

It was a new
world. I mean, I, I just...

I had never seen
anything more...

I was the villain for
trying to do justice.

I had a... An absolute...

Following of haters.

Who tried to make
my life miserable

in any way they could.

There were people
trying to find me,

there were people
threatening Amanda's life,

threatening my life.

Six years
after Meredith's m*rder,

with the battle raging
between the two sides,

the Supreme Court in Rome
delivers an astonishing verdict.

It quashes Amanda
and Raffaele's acquittal,

and orders a full retrial.

I just thought the fix was in.

Nobody who was unbiased or...

or of average intelligence
could look at the real evidence

in the case and convict her.

Despite the
painstaking independent

DNA review...

Italy's highest court
calls for the forensics and

all the circumstantial
evidence to be looked at again.

And it emphasises
the ruling in the records

of Rudy Guede's trial.

That he acted with others.

Everything is to be reviewed.

Apart from questions
about Rudy Guede.

Whose early life
and criminal past

had largely been ignored
by the investigation

and the courts.

Could he have simply
been a lone burglar?

Nobody was paying attention.

To the third guy whose
fingerprints were in blood

all over the room.

But who had, moreover,
had fled immediately

after the m*rder
to another country.

There's apparent
evidence of a break in.

A broken window...

and a rock found inside
the first floor bedroom

Meredith's cash and credit cars
were missing from her handbag.

But the prosecution
won't accept it's a burglary.

They say it's all staged.

The window is 12
feet off the ground,

and close to the road.

I've been to the cottage.

He was hidden until he
actually went through the window.

He was completely hidden,
and had the best hiding place.

It was in the corner
of the building,

that was the most concealed area

for him to throw
the rock through.

And Rudy is an
athletic, semi-professional

basketball player.

There's a rock in the room!

It looks like a burglary,
it smells like a burglary.

If it walks like a duck
and it quacks like a duck,

it's a duck.

You don't start saying
things like it was staged

until the burglary
makes no sense.

The burglary still made sense.

You've got a burglary
and a girl dead.

Those things happen.

The journalist Nina Burleigh

goes to Milan to check out
more about Rudy Guede's past.

Just five days before
Meredith's m*rder,

Rudy Guede was found
asleep inside a nursery school.

The proprietor
of that nursery said

that he was cool as a cucumber.

And...

You know, she called the police,

and in his bag,
they found a knife.

Also in his bag
is a computer stolen from

a lawyer's office in
Perugia two weeks before.

He is not Italian.

He has broken
into, of all things,

a preschool where children go.

He is passed out,
he's got a knife.

They arrest him, and
then they just release him.

And put him on a
train back to Perugia.

Rudy was
only ever convicted once,

of handling stolen goods
and attempted theft.

But in the two months
before Meredith's m*rder,

there were five break ins

that seemed to
bear the hallmarks

of Rudy Guede.

Rudy Guede denies this,
and Prosecutor Mignini says

the break ins have nothing
to do with Meredith's m*rder.

It appears that after the
summer that this was his main way

of getting funding.

One of the things that Rudy does

when he burglarises,
and this is kind of...

It, it's...

It's individual, but
it's not unusual.

Some burglars do this.

They make themselves at home.

He would look for
food, he would turn the heat up,

he would lie down on
the couch for a little while...

He would have a soda.

And then he would sort of...

Very casually wander
around and take stuff.

At the Perugia law office

that was burgled two and a half
weeks before Meredith's m*rder,

there's another surprise.

A first floor
window at the back of the office

is smashed by a rock.

It's argued this is
exactly how Rudy Guede

broke into Meredith's house.

So Rudy would throw a
rock through a window.

And if somebody was
home, they're going to

come to that window
to see what happened.

So Rudy goes to the
bushes a few feet away,

and if somebody
comes to the window,

he chooses a different house.

That's how he did it.

A week before the m*rder,

Rudy's next door neighbour
is burgled while she's out.

Two months before the m*rder,

Rudy was identified
breaking into another house.

A gentleman named
Christian Tramontano

woke up to find him
in his house one day.

And he pulled a knife on him.

So he had, like...

He was carrying a knife.

As far as we know, he
had never used the knife.

All that's about
to be ignored yet again.

But Rudy Guede's testimony,

putting others at
the m*rder scene,

will still be accepted,
unchallenged.

Seven years on from the m*rder,
the latest appeal in Florence

reconvicts Amanda and Raffaele.

And actually
increases her sentence

by two and a half years.

I, I...

I think I turned
white as a ghost.

Call the families, say,

"What do, what do we do next?"

And worry, like, is she
gonna be extradited?

Poor Raffaele, my first
thought went to him,

because he was there in Italy.

We felt very...

Very hopeless.

I was completely... Lost.

This time, the judges actually

misinterpret the tainted
forensic evidence.

With yet more
disastrous consequences.

It was a gut punch.
It was a gut punch.

If you put bad data in,
you're gonna get bad data out.

If you use bad evidence,
you're gonna get a bad verdict.

Simple as that.

For the Kercher family, however,

it feels like a glimmer of
hope in their search for closure

in the case.

Their verdict has been upheld.

Again this time.

So we hope that obviously,
coming end of the trial,

we are nearer to the
truth and, and an end,

so that we can just start
to remember Meredith

for just who she was, and...

And draw the line under it.

But there's
another appeal yet to come.

Soon, Amanda Knox
and Raffaele Sollecito

will learn their fate.

Now the prosecutors
prepare their case

for the last time.

Nearly eight
years, four conflicting verdicts.

In Rome, the scene is
set for the final judgement

of the highest court of Italy.

This time, there will
be no further appeal.

Everybody was on tenterhooks.

And the poor family have had
this hanging over their heads

for eight years.

It was staggering to me.

How we could have
spent so many years

to get to that point.

I was very nervous,

and I wanted to face and
see the court with my eyes.

I was followed by
11 police people.

They were afraid
that I would run.

I didn't want to flee, anyway.

I was just... Demoralised.

I am really scared.

I just think, "Anything
could happen."

And this is the last shot.

I was on the phone with Amanda

earlier that morning.

I and Amanda were
both pessimistic.

And you know,
a lot of discussion

was about what do
we do if they demand

extradition or
something like that.

The Supreme Court declares

Amanda Knox and
Raffaele Sollecito

are entirely innocent
of the charges

of conspiring to
sexually as*ault

and m*rder Meredith Kercher.

I was crying, she was crying,

and I got pulled
over for driving

while I was talking
on the phone.

Meredith was my friend.

And...

It's...

She deserved so
much in this life.

I...

I'm the lucky one.

So, thank you. Thank you.

I've got to go.

We really can't do that
now. Thank you so much.

I remember calling,

and everybody was
just really happy.

I remember I just kept
asking, "Is there anything else?"

"What else can happen?

Is there anything
else that can happen?"

And they assured
me no, this is...

This is it.

I did felt joy.

Yeah, I did.

It was bittersweet.

Four years.

Four years prison.

Six months of
solitary confinement.

And still today, I
feel that bitterness.

Even though I've
moved on with my life.

For the Kercher family,

the verdict is a
bewildering rejection

of everything they've
been led to believe.

The first reaction
was one of surprise.

And then I was shocked.

Because...

I've had two convictions.

And they've had
two acquittals now.

It seems an awful long time
to get such a strange verdict.

Eight years, and you're
saying you don't actually know

who did it?

So it's sort of bringing
everything into...

Disrepute.

They have been
led up and down a hill

several times.

I can't imagine what
they went through

in terms of building
themselves up to hear a verdict,

to then having it change,

to then having it changed again.

To then having it changed again,
to say that they were innocent.

And I think by that stage,

they were just numb.

You had a group
of judges at Supreme Court

who, who went through
the evidence and said,

"This is, this is absurd.

We want this to stop, we
don't believe they did it."

Enough.

The Supreme
Court rules definitively

that there is no DNA evidence
placing Amanda or Raffaele

at the m*rder scene
in Meredith's bedroom.

It dismisses
Mignini's contention

that they could have
cleaned away the evidence

or staged the burglary.

So why did Prosecutor Mignini

ever bring the prosecution
against Amanda

and Raffaele?

The cops' and
Mignini's assessment

of their behaviour,

is the foundational step
to them being charged.

They had just found
the body, bloody body

of her roommate.

Oh my God, she doesn't
have any sense of tragedy here.

Grief here.

She's making out
with her boyfriend.

You know, proper Italian girls
would not behave that way.

And in Mignini's mind,
that made him think

she could be a k*ller.

I didn't know
how to deal with stuff.

The only thing I could
do, the only one that was

caring about Amanda
in that moment.

Now for the first time,

Raffaele admits
he was naive when

the police investigated
him and Amanda.

I do regret that I was immature,

but we were young.

We were just kind of foolish,
and things we didn't get.

What, what's going on?

Your girlfriend's
roommate is m*rder*d.

Everybody could
react in a different way.

Mignini was such a character,

if you wrote about
him in a book,

people would think
it was overblown.

He was...

He was such a force of nature.

He was so fill of enthusiasm
for the prosecution,

and...

But very much came
across to me as somebody

who gets his way through
force of personality.

And in a case like
this, that's not sufficient.

You have to have the DNA
evidence, the forensic evidence

to back it up.

At the time of the m*rder,

Prosecutor Mignini was
accused of abuse of office,

though later acquitted.

Determined to
restore his reputation,

Mignini's instinct was to devise
a complex conspiracy theory.

Amanda and
Raffaele's so-called confessions

never backed up his
theory of conspiracy, either.

Despite hours of
police questioning

without a lawyer present,

neither of them ever confess
to carrying out the crime.

I know a lot about
interview and interrogation.

I am a trained FBI agent.

If you gave me 53
hours in that room

with Amanda using
their techniques...

I could have gotten
her to say anything.

I could have gotten Mignini
to confess to the crime.

And she still never
confessed to the crime!

And she's 20 years old,

and she's not

they're tag teaming, you know,

yelling at her at
three in the morning.

Italy's highest
court has ruled that

Amanda and Raffaele
didn't m*rder Meredith.

But it fails to answer who did.

The only person
convicted of the m*rder

is Rudy Guede,

he spent 14 years in prison,
and was freed last year.

We found Guede in Viterbo,

at a criminology institute.

Rudy continues
to insist his innocence.

He says he tried to
save Meredith's life.

Getting towels to
stem the bleeding,

but leaving without
ringing for an ambulance.

Professor Mariani
gave him voluntary work

at the institute to help
with his rehabilitation.

Rudy Guede
was never cross examined

by defence lawyers
in the Italian courts.

The earlier court rulings
state he wasn't alone

in the house,

and he didn't s*ab Meredith.

This remains the legal
truth on which he relies.

The sad fact
is there was no shortage

of evidence left in the house.

But after all the faults
with the forensics

and the prosecution case,

will it ever be possible to
say what really happened

that November night?

Despite eight
different and lengthy hearings,

the Italian courts never came
up with a definitive account

of what really happened.

But the clues were there.

The house was
deserted that night.

And the only other person
who freely admits to being there

is Rudy Guede.

Who had a history
of breaking in.

He sees the
upper floor, it's dark.

He has every expectation
that this is an empty place.

He throws the rock.

He starts to bust
through her clothes.

And he's doing
what he's used to doing,

which is going into
these empty places,

making himself at home.

He takes a dump,
and while he's on the toilet,

the victim comes home.

Meredith Kercher
opens the door with the key.

Of course she turns the
key, and locks the door.

She goes to her room.

He can't get out
without her keys.

And you can just
imagine how this plays out.

He puts a knife to the
neck, and he nicks her.

Or she struggles,
and he's cut her.

He's now crossed the line.

And she's screaming,
and she's wounded,

and...

He becomes a m*rder*r.

Rudy Guede denies this scenario.

And it was never proved
he was the lone attacker.

But the court did rule
there wasn't a conspiracy

with Amanda and Raffaele.

What happened
was it became a morality tale

about female sexuality.

Meredith was pitched as
this puritanical virgin-ous

Madonna character.

And I was portrayed
as this sexually, like,

obsessed, like, lustful,
uninhibited whore.

And ultimately the
reason why people liked,

so latched onto this case,

was because they
were having, like...

They were having,
they were judging

female sexuality through us.

They didn't care about
the truth anymore.

And that is an insane problem.

The prosecutor
and the online mob

that went for this
conspiracy theory,

they were the ones behind
the diversion of attention

from the victim to this
fascinating murderess.

When in fact, the
m*rder*r was...

like 99% of women
m*rder*d, k*lled by a man

and that's too boring
and too mundane

for a lot of the journalists.

And it was too
boring for the mob.

The online mob.

The couldn't accept
that it was just

another burglary gone wrong.

It had to be more... Salacious,

it had to be more fascinating.

It had to be a storey.

Prosecutor Mignini

always claims it
was only the media

who were obsessed with Amanda.

He says he never
encouraged them.

Today, Perugia has moved on.

The reporters are long gone.

Rudy Guede
wrote to the Kercher family

to express his sympathy.

[Narrator[ Prosecutor
Giuliano Mignini

is now retired.

But he also
insists he was right.

Amanda's prison chaplain
is his lifelong friend.

And Father Saulo Scarabattoli

has now helped foster
a remarkable dialogue

between Mignini and Knox.

Mignini feels he's
been unfairly scapegoated.

When many other prosecutors
and judges were involved.

But he is now agreed to
Amanda's request to meet.

Amanda Knox
now lives back in Seattle.

Hosting podcast series,
including one about true crime.

And bringing up her
newborn baby girl.

I've always put
myself in Meredith's shoes.

And I, like, I'm sort of haunted

by this survivor
skill kind of thing.

It's the, it's the first year

that I've put myself in
Meredith's mom's shoes.

And I...

Am thinking about that
for my own daughter.

How I...

I want the world to be
a better place for her

than it was for me.

Raffaele now
works in cloud computing.

But saus he still
suffers discrimination,

and remains haunted by what
wet on that November night.

It's very hard when
somebody you care about

is lost forever.

But the truth that I don't have
anything to do with this m*rder.

So...

I hope one day
they will accept it.

Meredith's
father wrote, movingly,

about the family living through
a seemingly never ending limbo

and having to face
the stark possibility

that they may never
have a satisfactory picture

of what unfolded in Perugia...

On that terrible November nigh.

It was very moving,
because far beyond

their unimaginable loss...

To get up and handle
it the way they did,

with, with such grace
and such dignity.

Both Meredith's parents

have now passed away.

But Meredith is not forgotten.

She would put
herself last, and always think

of her friends first.

And her love of
language, and, you know,

literature and
life, and travel...

She wanted to meet people.

She wanted to become
friends with people.

She had a lovely personality.

She's still happy
now, and that's...

In a way, a triumph over...

Over death.