THE MURDER OF MEREDITH KERCHER

The Murder of Meredith Kercher
Aug 19
Date and Location: November 1st, 2007 | Perugia, Italy

Suspects: Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito, Rudy Guede

Outcome: The conviction of Rudy Guede

Points of Interest: Miscarriage of justice, flawed forensic practice


Top: Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito, Rudy Guede

Bottom: Meredith Kercher

Overview
On the 1st of November 2007, Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student, was sexually assaulted and murdered in her apartment in Perugia, Italy, at the age of 21.

After spending the night with her boyfriend, Amanda Knox, whom Kercher shared the flat with, allegedly returned home the next morning. She found the apartment was left open, there was blood in the bathroom and Kercher's bedroom door was locked. She called her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, to gain entry into Kercher's room. After failed attempts to force open the door, the police were called and were able to gain entry. In the bedroom, Kercher's body was found partially clothed and covered by a duvet. She was discovered to have violent knife wounds.


In 2008, Knox and Sollecito were investigated and charged for Kercher’s murder and sexual assault, along with a third suspect by the name, Rudy Guede. In 2009, Knox and Sollecito were found guilty. They successfully appealed in 2011, were convicted again in 2014 and were finally acquitted in 2015 by Italy's Supreme Court in Rome. Their ultimate acquittal was due to several flaws in the forensic evidence being recognised. Guede was found guilty in 2008 and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment due to a profound amount of evidence supporting his guilt. His sentence was drastically reduced from 30 years, to 24 years, to 16 years due to a reduction given for a fast-track trial. In November 2021, Guede was released from prison.

Circumstances of Kercher’s murder
Meredith Kercher was one of the flatmates in a cottage situated on the outskirts of Perugia. On the night of November 1st, 2007, the 4 young males who occupied the bottom level of the flat were away for the long weekend and the other 3 women who occupied the upper level of the flat with Meredith were spending the night with their respective partners, leaving Meredith at the cottage by herself.

Amanda Knox was with her new boyfriend of 6 days, Raffaele Sollecito, that night and she returned the next morning to shower and change into some new clothes. Upon arrival, she noticed the front door was left open but wasn’t alarmed as it was known that the deadlock didn’t always latch properly. She then went to shower in the bathroom and noticed some small blood stains in the sink and on the bathmat. In a separate bathroom, she went to blow dry her hair and saw unflushed excrement in the toilet and then noticed that the door to Meredith’s bedroom was locked. Knox was concerned and left to bring Sollecito back with her. When they returned, they discovered that the window to one of the bedrooms was broken. Knox attempted to call Kercher to no answer, then called a flat mate and then Sollecito called the police. Once the Italian Military Police arrived, they forced open Meredith’s locked door and ultimately discovered her lifeless body covered by a duvet on the floor. The police began investigating the crime.

More than half of Kercher’s wounds involved injury to the head and neck including extensive bruising, cuts and deep wounds. She had two major knife wounds in her neck - one being on the left of her neck which was 8cm deep, down to the tissue and bone, and the other on the right of her neck being 4cm deep. A large amount of blood was found surrounding where her neck was positioned due to the deep wounds sustained. Given the differences noted in the sizes of the knife wounds it was likely that more than one knife was used. She also had multiple bruises in her vaginal and sphincter area, denoting sexual violence had occurred. Doctors’ testimonies suggested that the wounds indicated that Kercher had been choked and that her mouth and nose were covered and also that multiple individuals likely committed the attack on Kercher due to the lack of defensive wounds.

It could be deduced that she had sustained her neck injuries before her bra and sweat jacket were removed. The bra clasp had been cut off and was found under the pillow on which Kercher was on top of. A duvet, pillow, bed sheet, and fitted bed sheet had been taken from the bed and were found on the floor, except for the bed sheet which was never found.

Meredith's wallet, keys and cell phones had been removed from her purse. The phones were discovered in the nearby garden, approximately 1km from the cottage, while her wallet and keys were never found.

Following the discovery of Kercher’s murder
In the following days, Amanda Knox was questioned by police repeatedly. Despite not having analysed any forensic evidence, they had already decided that Knox and Sollecito were responsible for Kercher’s murder. In one long interrogation, as many as 12 people were aggressively interrogating, shouting and even hitting Amanda, all in the absence of a lawyer. They threatened her with having a long prison sentence and never seeing her family again. In an exhausted and scared state, she ended up describing to the police a vision of what possibly happened at the cottage which ended up in the police pursuing the arrest of herself, Sollecito and her boss, Patrick Lumumba.

After their arrest, a press conference was held and the police incorrectly stated that they had evidence that Meredith Kercher was murdered due to her refusal to join in on a sex game. This became a major focus in the media and largely participated in the ensuing unfair trials. The major issue with the police’s early decisions and statements was that they had not looked at the forensic evidence enough to be making such claims. Instead, they simply went with their “intuition” and bias.

Once the evidence started to be uncovered, it was clear that something was amiss in the police’s version of events. There was a large amount of evidence pointing to another suspect by the name of Rudy Guede who had fled to Germany. Several bloody shoe prints were found throughout the cottage and were consistent with a pair of Rudy Guede’s sneakers including 2 in the kitchen, 2 in the corridor, 7 in Meredith’s room and 1 on the pillow found under Kercher’s body.

The pillow found under Kercher’s body had bloody handprints and footprints on it which were also matched with Rudy Guede. His DNA was also consistent with samples taken from Merdith’s body, her purse, and the excrement in the toilet. Further, Lumumba had a solid alibi and so he was then released. So, instead of admitting they were wrong, they replaced Lumumba with Guede in their theory. Guede initially denied his involvement but later implicated Knox and Sollecito.

Public opinion was massively turned against Knox and Sollecito as the media wrote wildly untrue and damaging statements about the pair, making them out to be sex-crazed, heartless murderers.

The beginning of a long series of court trials…
On July 11, 2008, Knox, Sollecito and Guede were formally charged with murder.

Guede’s Trial: The Micheli court
The Micheli trial served as Guede's murder trial (due to his request for a fast-track trail) and the preliminary trial for Knox and Sollecito. On October 28, 2008, Knox and Sollecito were indicted on the murder charges and Guede was found guilty of Meredith Kercher’s murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. His conviction was later confirmed on appeal. His sentence was also eventually reduced to 16 years due to the nature of his trial.

Sollecito and Knox were held in prison until their trial started due to the refusal to grant them house arrest. The reasoning behind this was that, despite having no criminal records, it was deemed there was a high danger of recidivism and also because Knox was not showing any remorse.

Trial 1: The Massei-Cristiani court
After over a year (which during that time there was a large number of damaging media articles released), their murder trial began on the 16th of January 2009. On December 4, 2009, they were found guilty on all counts in a trial where the public’s mind was already made up before it began. Knox received a prison sentence of 26 years and Sollecito received 25 years.

In Italy, the courts are required to write what is called a “motivation report” for serious crimes and the one released for this first trial was written by the judge, Dr. Giancarlo Massei. Known as the Massei Report and released in March of 2010, the report was filled with unclear explanations and conjecture as well as a clear bias towards the prosecution.

Trial 2: The Hellmann-Zanetti court
Due to the allowance of an automatic appeal, and hence, a second trial, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito began their appeal trial on the 24th of November, 2010 which was overseen by Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann. This new trial involved a review of all the evidence and testimony previously put forward, as well as an independent review of the DNA evidence, particularly, samples taken from a bra clasp from Kercher’s bra, and a kitchen knife that was collected from Sollecito’s apartment. This DNA evidence review was conducted by Carla Vecchiotti and Stefano Conti and their findings concluded that the evidence was unreliable due to the high likelihood of contamination throughout the processing of the scene and analysis of the exhibits. It was determined that the police forensic scientists involved made many mistakes during the investigation.

On the 3rd of October, 2011, Knox and Sollecito were both declared not guilty of the murder. In Judge Hellmann’s motivation report, known as the Hellmann Report, it was stated that the key evidence against Amanda and Raffaele was unreliable and that the first court did not apply the correct standard of proof.

The Chieffi-Vecchio Ruling
As part of the Italian justice system, the Italian Supreme Court reviews the verdict given at the second level. On the 26th of March, 2013 they annulled the acquittals and ruled that Amanda and Raffaele would have to stand trial again.

Trial 3: The Nencini-Cicerchia court
The retrial began on September 30, 2013, in Florence, Italy and on January 30, 2014, the court reinstated Knox and Sollecito’s guilty verdicts and they were convicted of all charges again.

Trial 4: The Marasca-Bruno court (final acquittal)
Finally, after a long series of trials, on the 27th of March, 2015, the Italian Supreme Court acquitted Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

A summary of the key forensic evidence
ITEM 36: THE KNIFE
The weapon that was used to murder Meredith Kercher was not found at the scene by investigators. A knife was recovered separately from Sollecito's residence that was found to have a low-level DNA profile matching Kercher on the blade and a profile matching Knox on the handle. These results were integral to the case against Knox.


An important note to mention from a forensic perspective is that there was no evidence of blood on the knife, despite claims that the DNA originated from Kercher’s blood. Further, the prosecution adopted a ‘selective cleaning’ hypothesis to explain why Knox’s DNA wasn’t found at the scene which is highly implausible.

The knife’s collection was questionable at the least - from improper handling and inadequate, non-sterile packaging (an envelope which had been used to store gloves), leaving an abundance of opportunities for contamination, to the absence of controls and unjustified collection. A bloodstain found on a bedsheet at the crime scene was determined to be in the shape of a knife but one that was a different size and shape to the one collected from Sollecito's apartment. It was also determined that the majority of wounds sustained by Kercher could not have resulted from the knife.

Anti-contamination procedures were not recorded and it was possible the knife could have come in contact with Kercher's DNA on a surface at the laboratory or during improper handling. DNA result readings were also below the acceptable threshold. The a priori expectation of Knox’s DNA being on the knife was also neglected, as she had cooked in Sollecito’s apartment previously.

The only DNA evidence that showed association between Sollecito and the crime scene was a bra-clasp recovered from the crime scene. The exhibit was collected 46 days (1.5 months) after Kercher's murder and within this window of time it had been constantly moved around the room. It can be seen in crime scene videos that several officers passed the item around with non-sterile, unchanged gloves and it was even dropped on the floor which had been walked over by investigators with contaminated shoe covers. Such unprofessional handling and collection leaves much speculation around the integrity of the bra clasp as evidence due to potential contamination. Not only was Sollecito's DNA found, but at least four others were also contributors.

There are several reasonings for Sollecito’s DNA being present through contamination, given that he had been in the apartment before and had also attempted to break down the locked door to Kercher's room, the investigators could have easily transferred his DNA to the clasp after touching a surface he had come into contact with.

An additional point is that the clasp was not able to be retested for appellate purposes because it had rusted after being stored in a tube of extraction buffer, diminishing its reliability as evidence.

The Aftermath
The final court decisions saw Knox and Sollecito be set free, however, this means that legally, only one individual was deemed guilty of the murder of Meredith Kercher. Amanda Knox only ended up having one conviction related to the ‘accusation’ of her boss, Patrick Lumumba, who was imprisoned for 2 weeks. The sentence was 3 years in prison but was passed over due to the time she ended up spending in prison. Rudy Guede was due for release in January of 2022 but was granted early release in November, 2021.

The convictions and acquittals of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito highlight several significant issues regarding forensic evidence. The prominence of the case in the media led to unrealistic expectations of forensic evidence. Because of such publicity, the prosecution turned to proposing flawed hypotheses to explain the evidence to secure a guilty verdict. From the onset of the investigation at the scene to the collection, storage and analysis of evidence, serious oversights and neglect occurred. There was a lack of reporting, adherence to anti-contamination procedures, and controls and repetition in testing processes. Exaggeration of DNA results also contributed to the miscarriage of justice that occurred. The CSI effect further played a significant role in the case, particularly seen in the weight assigned to the presence of DNA evidence taking precedence over accuracy and reliability.

This case, while a major blemish on the forensic science discipline and one that had a major toll on those involved, provides so much opportunity to learn and grow from a forensic science perspective to avoid such injustice happening again. But it is more than just a forensic disgrace and miscarriage of justice. It is a story of a young girl of 21 who had her life taken in a horrendous manner when she had so much life left ahead of her. Her loss is one that has affected her family and friends in so many ways, but has also reached many around the world.