The Murder of Meredith Kercher (11 page)

‘We have been informed about this but our position has not changed,’ said Guede’s lawyer, Vittorio Lombardo. ‘We have always said that Guede was at the house that night and he has admitted it himself. It is clear that the police will find his DNA there, on the bag and elsewhere. But it does not mean he is the killer.’

Also, Luca Lalli, the pathologist who performed the 
autopsy on Meredith’s body, also said it was possible that the ‘sexual violence Meredith suffered may have been simulated to make it look as if she had been the victim of a sex attack.’ The DNA found on Meredith’s body that had been matched to Guede had come from ‘finger skin cells and not sperm,’ Lalli had concluded. Lalli also said that he believed the sex attack had been faked because he had not found any ‘bruising consistent with a rape’ on Meredith’s body. It was now being said in a new report that ‘there are elements which suggest Meredith was involved in recent sexual activity before she died, but from the data obtained it is impossible to say whether it was consensual or not.’

The report raised new questions about the sexual aspect of the case. If Meredith had engaged in sex with someone recently, how recently had it occurred and with whom? Before her boyfriend had left town? He had already told police that they’d had sex. And if not with her boyfriend, then who? However it turned out, the new finding served to diminish – if not eliminate – a sexual motive for Meredith’s murder.

O
n Wednesday, March 26, 2008, investigators moved Rudy Guede from his prison cell to an interrogation room where he underwent intense questioning for nearly six hours about his involvement in the Meredith Kercher murder and what he knew about the involvement of anyone else. His questioners came out of the session seemingly pleased, and said that he had provided a confession that amounted to a ‘nail in the coffin’ in the case. It was the first time that any of the three suspects had directly blamed each other for the crime to investigators, and although he had again denied having anything to do with the murder he had said that both Amanda and Raffaele had been at the house when Meredith was killed. Investigators had believed all along that, given enough time, one of the suspects would ‘break’ and reveal what they really knew about that night.

‘Amanda and Raffaele were at the house that night,’ Guede told investigators. ‘I saw them. When I came out of the bathroom I saw a male figure. I put my hand on his shoulder and he had a knife in his hand. I also heard Amanda Knox. She was at the door. I saw her there. The two girls hated each other. It was a row over money that sparked it off. Meredith accused Amanda of stealing 250 euro from her drawer.’

Although Guede had previously mentioned the ‘Italian’ man he had seen in the cottage the night of the murder, he had never named him. Guede told investigators that he recognized Sollecito from photographs that were shown to him while being questioned.

‘All I can say is that we were very pleased with what Guede had to say,’ Mignini said after the lengthy interrogation. ‘It was very, very useful to the investigation and we will be putting it all in the file which we will present later this spring.’

A source in the prosecutor’s office called Guede’s statement ‘a significant breakthrough,’ although Raffaele’s lawyers and his family failed to see it as such – understandable considering what it meant for Raffaele.

‘This version of events was planned and agreed beforehand,’ read a prepared statement from Raffaele’s family that was released to the media afterwards. ‘What he [Guede] says is totally unfounded and without proof. He is saying all this now after months in jail. It is also interesting to note that it comes less 
than a week before the application for the removal of custody [hearing]. At the same time it is also interesting to read of the prosecution’s satisfaction and that’s because it was all agreed and planned beforehand.’

Luca Maori, one of Raffaele’s attorneys, said that he would be waiting to ‘see the full statement and see exactly what it says’ before making any direct comments pertaining to Guede’s interview.

‘But it strikes me as being an unlikely account and comes from someone who is also very hard to believe,’ Maori said. ‘It is the act of someone who is in a desperate situation.’

‘It is further damning evidence for the case… for the prime suspects,’ Valter Biscotti, Guede’s attorney, said. ‘We were delighted with how it went. Guede again stressed his complete non involvement in the murder.’

Guede’s statement came a week before all three suspects were scheduled to appear in front of the Supreme Court in Rome to make an appeal to be freed on bail. None of the suspects had yet been formally charged.

Shortly after Guede’s statement, Telenorba, a local television station in Bari, Raffaele’s home town, broadcast an official police forensic film that showed the crime scene and graphic footage of Meredith’s body. After learning about the airing from their attorney, John and Arline Kercher were, needless to say, ‘shocked and distressed’ that they and their 
daughter had been victimized once again. Although the film was part of a documentary about the case,
Perfect Crime or Imperfect Investigation
, intended to show that the investigation into Meredith’s murder had not been handled well, the police footage in question was about three minutes long.

‘This is an example of gross journalistic misconduct, which evidently violates all the rules of how to report a story,’ the Kerchers’ attorney, Francesco Maresca, said. ‘I spoke with Stephanie Kercher, Meredith’s sister, about the programme and she was shocked and upset. At the moment, I do not know whether the family intends to pursue a court case against this pathetic journalistic initiative, but obviously the editor of the programme will have to take responsibility for it… We are looking at the possibility of legal action.’

The Kercher family and their lawyer were not the only people outraged by the broadcast. Italy’s Order of Journalists immediately asked that the video be confiscated so that it could not be shown again, and a scheduled rebroadcast was cancelled. The editor of the programme, Enzo Magistra, defended the showing and was adamant that it was not intended to offend anyone.

‘When I decided to transmit the images of Meredith’s corpse, I did not have the least intention of violating anyone’s dignity, but merely to do my job with respect to an important event,’ Magistra said.

Unlike in the U.S., it is typically not unusual for 
graphic images and film footage about atrocities to be broadcast on Italian television and also throughout much of Europe. Greater freedom regarding censorship seems to be exercised in the region, but many felt that a line had been crossed, an unspoken barrier broken, because of the sensitivity surrounding the Meredith Kercher case.

‘For five minutes of television, the ultimate taboo has been broken without any shame,’ said Anna Maria Ferretti, director of the Italian TV channel Antenna Sud.

On Tuesday, April 1, the Court of Cassation, Italy’s top criminal court, heard arguments for the release from prison of Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito, and Rudy Guede. However, the court rejected their appeals and ordered all three suspects to remain behind bars as the police continued with their investigation.

In early April 2008, Judge Claudia Matteini ordered that three independent experts report on findings in a new postmortem report designed to shed more light on the case. Once again, information about the report was leaked to the press before the scheduled release date. Unlike in the U.S. and Britain, it is not unlawful to release potentially damaging or prejudicial information during an ongoing investigation. A panel of judges typically makes up a jury in criminal cases in Italy, and it is presumed that a judge or other official will not be swayed by what he or she reads in a 
newspaper or sees on television news shows. As a result, the new report raised the possibility that Meredith may have been killed with two knives instead of one, and that she may have suffocated as opposed to having bled to death as originally believed.

The report also suggested that Meredith may have died during the early hours of the morning and not within the time-frame originally put forward. Unfortunately, because her body temperature was not recorded until approximately 11 hours after her death, the actual time that she died might never be known.

The new report also showed that Meredith’s blood alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit for driving, and said that she was on the ‘verge of a drunken stupor’ when she was killed. This conflicted with earlier reports in which witnesses had told police that she did not have anything to drink with dinner that evening. Combined with earlier information that a piece of mushroom had been found in her throat, suggesting that perhaps she had eaten pizza at some point that evening, along with her blood alcohol level being what it was, may have been an indication that she had not left Sophie Purton’s home at around 9 p.m. as originally believed but had, perhaps, left earlier, and stopped off somewhere for drinks and pizza before heading home. Pizza and alcohol had not been part of the menu served at Sophie’s flat that evening, thus deepening an already puzzling mystery. Could it be that she had actually gone out with Rudy Guede that 
evening, at least long enough to have a few drinks and perhaps a slice of pizza? It was supposed to have been an open-and-shut case,
Caso chiuso
, but was now looking like anything but, and only served to further increase the frustration of the police and Meredith’s family. Nonetheless Mignini, who had been claiming that ‘the Americans’ and others were attempting to ‘destabilize’ the investigation, stood by the case that had so far been built against the three suspects.

‘We are more than happy with how things are proceeding,’ Mignini said. ‘The DNA of all three suspects is at the house, we have them at the scene, and one admits to being there, while Knox and Sollecito do not… Knox has made declarations which she has changed several times. This behaviour in itself is unusual and warrants holding her.

‘First, she says she wasn’t there, then she was and now she wasn’t,’ Mignini continued. ‘Lies, all lies. Initially, we felt that all three were protecting each other and now [that] Sollecito and Knox are trying to push the blame on Guede, he has come out fighting and put the others at the scene. All three were involved in this murder. The question is how to attribute individual roles.’

On Friday, April 18, a hearing was called so that the new forensic report ordered by Judge Matteini could be discussed. Although it was designated a closed hearing, members of Meredith’s family – mother Arline, sister Stephanie, and brother Lyle, who had travelled to 
Perugia to attend – were allowed inside. Raffaele Sollecito was the only suspect to attend. It was the first time that Meredith’s family, sitting only a few feet away, had come face-to-face with one of the suspects, and an icy chill seemed to pervade the courtroom.

Although several aspects of the hearing were difficult for Meredith’s family to bear, they remained in court until graphic photographs of Meredith’s body were shown. Too much for them to take, and clearly upset by what they had seen, they left for a brief time to recover their composure.

A day earlier, when they had first arrived in Perugia, the family paid a surprise visit to lead prosecutor Mignini to talk to him about the case. While it was not known what was said during the meeting, they did say later that they had full faith in the police investigation. After the meeting with Mignini, the family held a press conference.

‘Generally we are pleased with the way the investigation has been going,’ Lyle Kercher said. ‘We have been a bit disappointed with some of the information that has been leaked, both in terms of the frequency and the content of it, none more so than of course the images and the video footage that was released a couple of weeks ago from the crime scene… this was in our opinion poor taste and unnecessary.’

He said that his family was confident that Meredith’s killer or killers would be brought to justice when all was said and done. 

‘Ultimately, nothing can be done to undo what has happened and bring Meredith back,’ he continued. ‘All we can do is to hope we can work together to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice. Despite attempts to perhaps discredit evidence and undermine the process, we do have every faith in the police, forensic experts, the legal team that we have and the Italian justice system, and believe their efforts will ultimately see the right person or persons responsible suitably punished.’

Towards the end of the press conference, the Kercher family lawyer, Francesco Maresca, read a statement from the family to reporters: ‘Almost six months since she died, we are still coming to terms with the idea of never seeing our Meredith smiling and happy again. We are here today and it is easier to see the motive as to why Meredith fell in love with Perugia and why she chose to study Italian here, with the prospect of maybe teaching or working in politics. Undoubtedly she would have chosen a career in which she would have made a difference.

‘As you can see,’ the statement continued, ‘Meredith was particularly loved by all her family and friends, who have expressed their condolences and closeness in these months. The bright future that Mez had in front of her has been snatched away, but we want that her happy personality is remembered instead of a tragic event of which she was victim.’

As the three murder suspects languished in jail and Amanda continued to write in her prison diary, singing Beatles songs to herself to keep her spirits up, investigators continued studying the evidence, witness statements, and interviews with the suspects as they built their case. Finally, three months later, on Friday, July 11, Mignini was satisfied that he had what he needed to successfully prosecute the case in court and issued a formal request that Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito, and Rudy Guede be charged with Meredith Kercher’s murder and that the case be sent to trial. It was at that time that Mignini sent the file to Paolo Micheli, a preliminary hearing trial judge, who would decide whether there was sufficient evidence to bring the three suspects to trial or to release them without charge. Because the wheels of justice turn slowly in Italy, as does practically everything – which some may perceive as not necessarily a bad thing – it would probably take Micheli until mid-September to make such a determination.

‘We knew this would happen, although we had hoped that the prosecutor would make further investigations,’ said Raffaele’s lawyer, Brusco. ‘We especially wanted him to focus on CCTV footage from the car park opposite the house where poor Meredith was murdered, as this is vital. However, this was not the case, so we shall make a formal request at the preliminary hearing in September.’

Meanwhile, earlier in the week, Amanda celebrated 
her 21st birthday within the confines of Capanne prison with her mother, Edda. Raffaele sent her a bouquet of flowers, but there was no birthday cake because it was not allowed by prison authorities.