The Forgotten Killer: Rudy Guede and the Murder of Meredith Kercher (Kindle Single) (3 page)

On January 30, 2014, the new trial verdict will come in, and, once again, Amanda and Raffaele may be found innocent. As in the appeals trial, the court may find the evidence used to convict them—both scientific and eyewitness—to be faulty or nonexistent. But this is not the end. The legal appeals and wrangling over the case may continue, perhaps for many years to come.

Niccolò Capponi, a distinguished Florentine historian who is deeply knowledgeable about the inner workings of the judiciary, explained that this decision is “a case of
dare un colpo al cerchio ed uno alla botte
” (in English: “Give a blow to the ring and one to the barrel…”)—in other words, it is an attempt to satisfy everyone. The judiciary could say they had done all they could on behalf of justice to placate Italian public opinion against Amanda. The corruption and unfairness of the original trial was swept under the rug. The torrent of bad publicity about the case coming out of America was halted. In other words, the case, almost from the beginning, was more about covering up mistakes and protecting the careers of powerful people than in finding the truth about who killed Meredith Kercher.

During the early weeks when Amanda was in prison, police and prosecutors fiercely leaked their version of events to the Italian press. Italian juries are not sequestered, and Italian public opinion plays a large role in Italian jury verdicts. But some opinion in America also turned against Amanda, primarily because most news organizations in the U.S. did not have the budget or manpower to send legitimate
investigative reporters to Italy to cover the story. Many print and electronic accounts were simply verbatim regurgitations of the prosecution’s version of events without qualification. The language barrier became a nearly insurmountable hurdle to thorough and accurate reporting, as few reputable bilingual investigative journalists were assigned to cover the story. Often, those who wrote about the case appeared to be biased. The Rome bureau chief for
Newsweek
, Barbie Nadeau, sarcastically dismissed Amanda’s defenders as a “cult” in an e-mail to me—even as she was covering the case as a supposedly objective journalist. Later, she wrote a book subtitled “The True Story of Student Killer Amanda Knox,” which argued Amanda was guilty. (When Amanda was found innocent, she hastily changed the subtitle to “Sex, Murder and the Inside Story of Amanda Knox.”) A stringer who wrote about the case for the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, Andrea Vogt, later opined in the pages of the
New York Post
that she thought Amanda was guilty. This did not surprise Amanda’s family or defenders, as many had already noted that Vogt’s articles, while dressed up as impartial journalism, often seem to carry a venomous slant against Amanda. Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of
Newsweek/The Daily Beast
, was perhaps the most prominent of these biased journalists; she wrote that a “merciless culture of sex, drugs, and alcohol” led to Amanda’s “descent into evil,” and she wondered aloud if Amanda’s “pretty face“ was perhaps only a “mask, a duplicitous cover for a depraved soul.”

Because the victim was British and the daughter of a tabloid journalist, the British tabloids went wild, portraying Amanda as a promiscuous, remorseless,
depraved, drug-addicted killer. British public opinion turned strongly against her. A number of Web sites peopled by anonymous bloggers sprang up devoted to trashing Amanda, spewing gigabytes of fact-free venom at her. The Wikipedia entry about the case became one of the most controversial ever, triggering a brawl among top Wiki editors, which led to outings, rants, and bans for life. The dispute finally triggered the intervention of founder Jimmy Wales himself. The truth of what really happened that night sank in all the hysteria like a bright penny tossed into a swamp.

Amidst all the sound and fury, two people have been largely forgotten. One is the victim, Meredith Kercher, who was by all accounts a lovely, intelligent young woman full of great promise. Her murder was a terrible tragedy.

The other is Rudy Guede—the actual murderer.

As this book shows, the evidence against Guede was overwhelming from the beginning. That he committed the crime alone, without help, is also beyond question. Guede was convicted in a fast-track trial and sentenced to 16 years in prison. With time off for good behavior, he will probably gain daytime release privileges this year. Meanwhile, the endless judicial persecution of Amanda and Raffaele continues.

Many people I have spoken with are still uncertain what to believe. They wonder if, perhaps, Amanda and Raffaele might have had something to do with the murder. Some people find it hard to accept that two completely innocent people could linger for so long under a cloud of suspicion, or that the criminal-justice system of a civilized European country could manufacture guilt out of thin air.
Others have been influenced by the online industrial complex of Amanda-haters and conspiracy-mongers, who have spread their falsehoods everywhere on the Web.

Many have made up their minds, but there are others who genuinely want to know the truth.
The Forgotten Killer
, prepared by some of the country’s leading experts in criminology, forensic science, crime-scene analysis, and legal procedure, at long last presents the truth.

CHAPTER TWO: WHAT THE CRIME SCENE SHOWS

by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker

To treat the crime as objectively as possible, we have presented this analysis as if it were a consultation on an unsolved case from the FBI to a local police department, like the thousands that John Douglas’ Investigative Support Unit provided. We have assumed knowledge of certain facts that were not known to the police on the first day—such as
various alibis and DNA laboratory findings—but would have been known by the time the case was presented to the FBI. Generally, an FBI profiler would not want to know or be influenced by police investigators’ theories or interpretations of physical, verbal, or behavioral evidence. We have not analyzed the semen stain on the pillow beneath the victim’s hips because it was not discovered until considerably after the scene was processed. We have presented a few such police theories here, however, when direct refutation and explanation are necessary for a clear and complete understanding of the dynamics of the case.

VICTIM: MEREDITH SUSANNA CARA KERCHER, Age 21

Perugia, Italy

November 1-2, 2007

The following Criminal Investigative Analysis was prepared by former unit chief
John Douglas
of the Investigative Support Unit (ISU), Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC), in consultation with
Mark Olshaker
.

The observations, opinions, and suggestions contained herein are the result of knowledge drawn from personal investigative experience, educational background, specialized training, and research conducted by members of the ISU and others.

This analysis is based on a thorough review of investigative materials, including investigative reports of the crime scene, autopsy reports and protocols, crime-scene photographs and video recordings, diagrams, forensic evaluations of evidence, and complete victimology data derived from interviews of people who knew the victim.

The purpose of this analysis was to behaviorally assess the offender’s interaction with the crime scene and victim. In order to offer an opinion as to the crime classification, primary motivation of the offender, his pre-and post-offense behavior and whether the crime scene was staged, we factored into this analysis the following:

               
•
     
Location of homicide.

               
•
     
Level of risk the offender assumed to perpetrate the crime.

               
•
     
Whether the victim was specifically targeted.

               
•
     
Level of familiarity, knowledge, and comfort exhibited by the offender at the crime scene.

               
•
     
The offender’s ability to access the crime scene and victim.

               
•
     
Level of risk to which the victim was exposed.

               
•
     
Degree of control exercised over the victim.

               
•
     
Number of offenders involved in the crime.

               
•
     
Choice of weapon.

               
•
     
Activity following the crime.

               
•
     
Possibilities and motivations for staging.

Because statistical data identifies only 7 percent of homicide offenders as female, the pronoun “he” is used to describe the offender. Had there been any specific indication of a female offender or multiple offenders, the pronouns would have been adjusted accordingly.

Background

The crime involves the homicide of a 21-year-old female in the bedroom of her residence at Via della Pergola 7 in the city of Perugia, Italy, in the late evening of
Thursday, November 1, 2007. The victim,
Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher
of Coulsdon, Surrey, United Kingdom, was studying modern history and political theory for a semester at the University of Perugia.

She resided on the upper floor of a rented white stone and stucco cottage (hereinafter “the house”) with three other females:
Amanda Marie Knox
, 20, of Seattle, Washington, and two Italians,
Filomena Romanelli
and
Laura Mezzetti
, both 29. Knox was a student at the University of Washington, taking a semester to study Italian at the Università per Stranieri di Perugia (University for Foreigners of Perugia). Romanelli and Mezzetti were junior associates in local law firms. Each woman had her own bedroom. Kercher and Knox were subletting from Romanelli and Mezzetti as flatmates. Kercher moved in on September 10, 2007. Knox moved in on September 20.

The lower floor was rented by four Italian men:
Giacomo Silenzi
,
Stefano Bonassi
,
Marco Marzan
, and
Riccardo Luciani
. There was a separate, locking entrance to each level. The women upstairs were known to socialize informally with the men downstairs. Kercher reportedly had been romantically involved with Silenzi for about 10 days at the time of the murder. All reports suggest the eight individuals got along well together. Any interpersonal frictions were minor and standard, involving such issues as cleaning responsibilities and music.

On the night of the murder, Knox was staying at the apartment of her boyfriend of one week,
Raffaele Sollecito
, 23, an engineering and computer science student from Bari. Romanelli was staying with her boyfriend,
Marco Zaroli
. Mezzetti and the four men were visiting their families for the All Saints’ holiday weekend.

According to Knox, she returned home around 10:30 on the morning of November 2 and found the front door ajar. Kercher’s bedroom door was closed. Knox assumed the front door was accidentally left unlocked and, because the latch was faulty, had swung open. After showering in the small bathroom that she and Kercher shared, Knox noticed blood droplets on the sink faucet and the floor mat on which she was standing. She realized there were no towels, which was unusual. She went into her own bedroom for a towel, dried off, and played music on her computer as she dressed. She went into the larger bathroom shared by Romanelli and Mezzetti to borrow their hair dryer and noticed the toilet bowl contained feces and toilet paper.

Alarmed, she left quickly and returned to Sollecito’s flat, describing to him what she had seen. She called Kercher’s British mobile phone but got no answer. Then she called Kercher’s Italian mobile phone that had been lent to her by Romanelli. Again, there was no answer. She called Romanelli and expressed her concern.

Knox and Sollecito returned to the cottage together. When they looked in Romanelli’s bedroom, they found it ransacked, with clothing strewn about the floor. The shutters were open and the window was broken, apparently by a rock weighing approximately 10 pounds near her desk. Though Knox suspected a burglary, she noted that Romanelli’s laptop computer had not been taken and Mezzetti’s bedroom was undisturbed. Kercher’s bedroom door was closed and when Knox banged on the door there was no answer. When she tried the knob, the door was locked.

Romanelli called, and Knox told her about the broken window. Now seriously worried, Knox called her mother,
Edda Mellas
, in Seattle. Mellas urged her to call the police. Knox’s Italian was rudimentary, so Sollecito called his older sister,
Vanessa
Sollecito
, employed by the Carabinieri national police force in Rome. She gave the same advice. Sollecito called the 112 emergency telephone number.

Two officers of the national Postal Police arrived on the scene. Knox did not understand the distinction and believed them to be the police department Sollecito had called. In point of fact, they came on their own, following a report by a woman approximately a half-mile away by road, that she had found two mobile telephones in her garden. The Postal Police, who have investigative jurisdiction over telecommunications, had traced the ownership of the mobiles to Kercher and Romanelli (the unit she had lent Kercher) at the Via della Pergola address.

Shortly thereafter, Romanelli’s boyfriend, Zaroli, arrived with a friend,
Luca Altieri
, in response to a worried call from Romanelli after she spoke with Knox. Romanelli herself then arrived with
Paola Grande
, who was both her close friend and Altieri’s girlfriend.

The Postal Police were reluctant to take any action before the Carabinieri arrived, but Romanelli asked Altieri to break down Kercher’s door, which he accomplished after several tries.