Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir (24 page)

Biscotti was a little man who wore suits the color of . . . well, biscotti. His gray, curly hair sat like a thick rain cloud on his head. He came across as being convinced of the one thing no one else believed. He knew Rudy, Rudy was a good kid, and because he believed in his client’s innocence, “Rudy should go free,” he said.

T
he pretrial lasted for five and a half weeks—this wasn’t surprising, because it was only held once or twice a week. Each time we met I would take the claustrophobic van ride, and when we arrived I would have the stomach-twisting encounter with the press. Even if I understood Italian pretty well by then, the technical discussions about DNA would have been impenetrable for me. I was weary of this soul-killing routine. It seemed to me that it was time for me to be freed and go home.

My family was as optimistic as I was. I had been in prison for about a year, and the anniversary seemed an appropriate time for my release. But the closer we got to the end, the more pessimistic my lawyers grew. “The judge will probably rule that you’ll have to be tried for murder, because there’s so much attention on this case,” Carlo said. “We have to be ready for that.”

This broke my heart. “Why can’t everything be resolved in the pretrial?”

“It’s more complicated than that, Amanda. It’s likely going to take a jury. We will have to call witnesses.”

But Luciano and Carlo never completely lost hope. “It’s possible this could end well,” Carlo said. I clung to that chance.

Still, there were reasons to be worried. Because the prosecution was withholding information, there was evidence I couldn’t refute: the knife, my “bloody” footprints, Raffaele’s DNA on Meredith’s bra clasp. And how would we fight the prosecution’s claim that we’d cleaned up the crime scene? I went to sleep every night telling myself that it would work out because we were innocent—and because it was so clear that Guede was guilty and lying.

My lawyers argued exhaustively that Meredith and I had been friends—that there was no animosity between us. They argued that we had no connection to Guede, that Kokomani was a lunatic. But the case hinged on DNA, not on logic.

On October 28, the final day, I got to speak for myself. Since the judge understood English, I stood up without my interpreter and tried to explain what had happened during my interrogation. I told the judge that I hadn’t meant to name Patrick or to cause confusion but that the interrogation had been the most brutish, terrifying experience of my life. I’d been exhausted to begin with, and I had gotten so scared and confused that it was as though I went out of my mind. My interrogators told me that they had evidence I’d been at the villa, that Raffaele was no longer vouching for my whereabouts that night, that I had been through such a horrible trauma, I had amnesia. “I believed them! I’m innocent!” I cried.

I was shaking, so nervous I couldn’t go on. I didn’t mean to cry, but I wept uncontrollably. Recalling the interrogation struck me at my core. I was so eager for a positive decision, so eager for this ordeal to be over, that I couldn’t keep myself together. Afterward, I hunched over in my chair, ashamed of having lost hold of my emotions. Luciano and Carlo patted my head and rubbed my back. “Don’t worry,” Carlo insisted. “You did fine.”

When the prosecution rested their case, Mignini demanded a life sentence for Guede and a full trial for Raffaele and me.

After the judge retired to his chambers, we were each taken to a different empty office in the courthouse to wait for his decision. Raffaele folded a page from that day’s newspaper into a flower, which the guards brought to me. But I was focused on Guede, who was being held in the room next to mine. I could hear him talking with the guards, cracking jokes, and chuckling. I was fuming! I wanted to beat on the wall and tell him to shut up. His nonchalance incensed me. I thought,
Does no one else feel this?

Six hours into what would be a day-long wait, I got to see my lawyers. “It’s unusual for the judge to deliberate this long,” Carlo said excitedly. “If the decision were easy, it would have happened already.”

Carlo’s optimism fueled my own. Maybe the judge will be gutsy enough to see how preposterous Hekuran Kokomani’s wild story was and the truth in Sarah Gino’s questions.
Oh God, this is taking forever
.
It must be a good sign
.

Late Tuesday afternoon, when the sky was dark, word came up. The judge was ready.

I entered the courtroom. I could barely walk.

Judge Micheli read Guede’s verdict first: Guilty for the sexual assault and murder of Meredith Kercher, with a sentence of thirty years.

The verdict didn’t surprise me at all—for a second, I was enormously relieved. I thought,
He’s the one who did it.
The judge’s delivery was so flat he could have been reading the ingredients off a box of bran flakes. Still, my chest clenched when I heard “thirty years.” Not because I pitied Guede. I’d been so focused on whether he would be found guilty or innocent, I hadn’t thought about the length of his sentence. I was twenty-one; thirty years was more time than I’d been alive—by a lot.

I breathed in.

“The court orders that Knox, Amanda, and Sollecito, Raffaele, be sent to trial.”

I broke down in huge, gulping sobs. I’d made a heartfelt plea—“I’m telling you I’m innocent! I’m sorry for any of the confusion I’ve contributed.”

The judge hadn’t believed me.

On the heels of the announcement “This court is adjourned,” the guards started walking me out.

“Amanda, don’t cry,” Carlo called. “Don’t worry. This isn’t the end. The trial is different from pretrial. Both sides get to put forth witnesses. We’re going to analyze everything. We’re going to prove them wrong.”

I wanted him to be right. But all I could think was if the court hadn’t believed me this time, why would they believe me the next time?

Chapter 24

October–December 2008

I
n prison there is never just one stress.

That phrase was becoming my mantra.

About a week before my pretrial ended, another traumatic episode began. One gray day, when I was outside exercising, I saw some prisoners I had become friends with. “Hey!” I yelled. “Good morning!”

They glared at me but said nothing. I walked away.

Something is wrong, but what? What’s going on?

After walking a couple of laps by myself, even my headphones didn’t block out the painful silence. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. I was too upset to keep going, but I was afraid to stop for fear that whatever was happening would catch me as soon as I stood still.

Finally the guards called me to the office of the
ispettore
, a round middle-aged woman with short, wispy orange-dyed hair. I found her standing behind her desk pointing at a copy of
Corriere dell’Umbria
, the local paper, spread open in front of her. “How do you explain this?” she demanded.

“
Spiegare che cosa?
” I asked, baffled. “Explain what?”

I could see that the headline said something about me.

“It’s an interview,” she said. “It talks about Cera.”

“You know I don’t give interviews!” I said.

The inspector turned the paper around so I could read the article. The reporter claimed to have interviewed my mother, who talked about things I’d said.

“You need to tell your mother to refrain from speaking about the inner workings of the prison,” the
ispettore
said sternly.

“My mom would never do that!” I screeched. “She only gives interviews to talk about my innocence. She would never reveal our private conversations.”

But the article was full of insider information. They’d gotten Cera’s name and certain details right. They said she kissed me once and that I feared further sexual harassment. They knew she was a cleaning fanatic and that she wouldn’t let me make coffee because it would leave water spots on the sink.

Now I knew why my prison friends were shunning me. Like Wilma, I was now an
infame
. The
ispettore
, guards, and prisoners assumed I’d told my mom to tell journalists that I was being harassed and abused in prison, betraying Cera to gain public sympathy.

“Maybe a guard talked,” I said to the
ispettore.

She scowled at me.

Who, other than a few guards and my family, has access to my conversations?

My lawyers later explained. “Remember, the conversations you had with your parents were bugged,” Carlo said. The prosecution entered the transcriptions of the conversations as evidence, which was why they were made public.

By the time I knew this, though, no prisoner was talking to me. I willed myself not to care. They wouldn’t have listened to an explanation anyway. Now, both inside and outside, I was being accused of something I hadn’t done.

Cera had been the one to tell me how mean, how crazy, how awful, prisoners could be to one another. I hadn’t wanted to believe her, and I’d promised myself that I’d never become bitter like she was. But I was getting closer. I refused to become so cynical and angry that I felt spite, but my natural hopefulness was flagging.

Even though I was no longer separated from the rest of the prisoners, as I had been for months, I felt more isolated than ever. The few prisoners who did acknowledge me glowered.

Only Fanta, the young Roma woman who delivered groceries, said hello, and she’d often stop by my cell and tell me jokes.

Prison is a hard, raw place, where people think of themselves before others and where compassion is often forsaken.

Don Saulo was the one person who cared about any of us. In spite of the awful way the other prisoners treated me, he restored some of my faith in humankind. “It doesn’t matter what people think you did,” he told me. “What matters is what you did do. Don’t worry if people can’t see your goodness. The only important thing is your conscience. You have to take heart and strength in that.”

Happily for me, my stepfather Chris’s job let him telecommute from Perugia. His advice about standing up to the other prisoners was good, if not practical. And it made me laugh. “You need to grow some big
cojones
,” he said. “Yours are a little too small. You need some real big fat ones,” he said, making a squeezing gesture with his hands.

We held onto the belief that the law would be on my side when my trial started. I was innocent. No matter how the prosecution misconstrued things, there would never be evidence enough to convict me. And I had the great consolation of knowing that prison wasn’t my world. In time, I’d be set free. I could survive this as long as it took. But I never thought it would take years.

The other person who gave me hope during this time was an Italian professor from UW. I hadn’t studied under him yet, but he organized an independent study class for me in which I got to read, write, and translate Italian poetry and short stories. I was frustrated by the academic time I’d lost, and I was determined not to waste another minute.
You came to Italy to learn Italian, Amanda
, I told myself.
Immerse yourself in it 24/7.

I kept saying good morning to the other prisoners. In time, some returned a curt “
Ciao
.” Most didn’t. Cera had told them to ignore me, and for their own preservation, they did.

The only place I found peace was inside my own head. I started expecting nothing. The one thing that surprised me was the occasional time another prisoner, like Fanta, treated me kindly. As excruciating as this was, it forced me to develop a sense of independence, a faith in myself.