CHAPTER 28

THE DAY OF THE DEAD

In the fall of 2007, twenty-one-year-old Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, a Leeds University student from Coulsdon, Surrey, south of London, had just begun a yearlong adventure. She was taking a course in modern history and political theory as an exchange student at the University of Perugia in the beautiful medieval and Renaissance city, about a hundred miles north of Rome. She wanted to follow her father, John, into a career in journalism, and she had worked at Gatwick Airport, near her home, to raise money for the overseas program.

Called “Mez” by her friends, of which there were many, Meredith shared the four-bedroom upper floor of a tiled-roof, white stone and stucco cottage at Via della Pergola 7 with three other young women: twenty-year-old American exchange student Amanda Marie Knox, of Seattle, Washington, and Italians Filomena Romanelli and Laura Mezzetti. Filomena and Laura were just starting out as attorneys in local firms. Amanda, an honors student from the University of Washington, came over around the same time as Meredith. She was studying Italian at the Stranieri, officially the Universita per Stranieri di Perugia—the University for Foreigners of Perugia.

Meredith and Amanda were both pretty, smart and personable. Amanda was the wholesome outdoorsy type, outgoing and bubbly, a guitar-playing free spirit. She was an honors graduate of Seattle Prep, an elite Jesuit high school to which she’d won an academic scholarship. She had been to Japan as an exchange student, had recently visited German relatives and said she wanted to master at least seven languages. She worked part-time at a bar called Le Chic, operated by Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, an immigrant from Congo, well known and popular in Perugia. Patrick had come to Perugia in the 1980s to study political science at the Universita per Stranieri, where Amanda was studying, and stayed on after graduation. In addition to the bar, he produced concerts at the university. When he met Amanda, Patrick thought her looks and personality would attract patrons.

Meredith, the youngest of four children, was equally bright and accomplished. Like Amanda, she was a child of divorce. She had an exotic beauty, the product of an English father and a Pakistani mother, whose ethnic characteristics had mixed perfectly in their daughter. She was more reserved and introspective, but with a zany, goofy side that came out when she was in relaxed social situations. In addition to her flatmates, she had a posse of British girls with whom she hung out when they could tear her away from her studies.

The house they shared had a panoramic view of the city, though some locals considered it situated in a bad neighborhood. Laura and Filomena, in their late twenties, had found the house through a leasing agent and then posted flyers to find the additional tenants they’d need to handle the rent. Their rooms were at the front of the cottage, and Meredith’s and Amanda’s were in the back, in an addition that overlooked a ravine. Four Italian guys—Giacomo Silenzi, Stefano Bonassi, Marco Marzan and Riccardo Luciani—lived on the lower floor.

Thursday, November 1, 2007, the day after Halloween, was All Saints’ Day, a national holiday in Italy. Meredith was alone in the cottage that evening after having watched a movie at a friend’s house. Amanda was staying over at the flat of her new Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. A twenty-three-year-old computer science and engineering student from Bari, whose father was a prominent urologist, Raffaele had a mop-topped Harry Potter look. She had met him at a classical music concert on October 25, and they had been pretty hot and heavy ever since. Raffaele’s parents had also divorced; and in his second year of college, his beloved mother had died suddenly of a heart condition. He couldn’t get over not being home when she passed away and was still mourning her.

On the night and day in question, Filomena was staying with her boyfriend, Marco Zaroli, and the other five Italians were visiting their families for the holiday weekend.

Amanda returned to the house around ten-thirty on the morning of November 2, according to her account, and found the front door ajar. There was no spring latch, so the door had to be locked with a key. Meredith’s bedroom door was closed; and if she was still sleeping, Amanda didn’t want to disturb her. So Amanda went to shower in the small bathroom the two girls shared.

As she stepped out and was about to dry herself, she noticed what looked like dried blood droplets on the sink and the floor mat she was standing on. There were no towels, she suddenly realized. Maybe Meredith had had a bad period, but she was always so meticulously neat and clean that it all seemed strange.

Amanda went to her bedroom to fetch a towel and dry off. She played music on her computer while she got dressed. Then she went into the bigger bathroom off the kitchen, which Laura and Filomena shared, to borrow their hair dryer. As she was drying her hair, she suddenly noticed the toilet was unflushed and the bowl was filled with feces and toilet paper. This was not something any of her roommates would do, and she was sufficiently creeped out to quickly leave the house and rush back over to Raffaele’s flat, where she described to him what she had encountered.

She called Meredith’s British mobile phone, but she got no answer. Then she called her Italian mobile, which was registered in Filomena’s name. Still, she got no answer. A few minutes later, Filomena called to say she was very worried because she had also been trying to reach Meredith.

Taking Raffaele with her, Amanda went back to the cottage and took him first to the larger bathroom. Then they checked out Filomena’s room, which was a mess. It looked as if someone had rummaged through everything and left clothing strewn about the floor. Most alarming, there was a rock near her desk, and one of the bedroom windows was broken.

Even though Filomena’s computer was sitting on the desk, Amanda was convinced the house had been burglarized and went to look in Laura’s room. Nothing had been touched. This wasn’t adding up. She knocked on Meredith’s door again; still, no answer.

When Filomena called again, Amanda told her about the broken window. A few minutes later, at 12:47 P.M., the now-panicked Amanda called her mother, Edda Mellas, in Seattle, where it was 4:47 A.M., and told her what had happened. Edda told her to call the police. Since Amanda’s Italian was only barely passable, Raffaele called his older sister, Vanessa, who worked in Rome for the Carabinieri, the national quasi-military police. Like Edda had, she told him to call the Carabinieri immediately, which he did on the emergency 112 number.

Meanwhile, the Polizia Postale—the Postal Police—arrived on the scene. They had been contacted by a woman about a half mile up the road who had found Meredith’s mobile phones in her garden. Telephone regulation in Italy is under the jurisdiction of the post office, and they had traced ownership of both phones to Via della Pergola. The two plainclothes officers—Michele Battistelli and Fabio Marzi—found Amanda and Raffaele outside, saying they were waiting for the Carabinieri. They brought the officers into the house and Amanda showed them around. She didn’t understand the distinction in police services and thought these were the officers Raffaele had called.

Downstairs flatmate Marco Marzan showed up with a friend, Luca Altieri. He explained that Filomena had asked him to come after Amanda’s worried call. Shortly afterward, Filomena arrived with her best friend Paola Grande, who was also Luca’s girlfriend. Filomena examined her room and discovered that nothing was taken, not even cash or jewelry.

All focus was now on Meredith and her locked door, but the Postal Police were reluctant to take any action until the Carabinieri arrived. Finally, around 1:15 P.M., Filomena asked Luca to break down the door. He kept kicking it until it broke from its hinges and flew open.

The room was covered in blood. Meredith’s beige duvet was on the floor. Filomena saw a bare foot sticking out from underneath.

Amanda rushed in the direction of Filomena’s screams, but Raffaele intercepted her and pulled her away. Inspector Battistelli ordered everyone out of the house, then called police headquarters.

It was All Saints’ Day, also known to many Christians as All Souls’ Day or the Day of the Dead.

 

I didn’t know much about the Meredith Kercher murder case until Mark Olshaker brought it to me with the comment that it seemed to have remarkable echoes to the West Memphis Three. He had become convinced that like Damien, Jason and Jessie in West Memphis, Seattle college student Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, had been railroaded into a conviction for the murder of Amanda’s housemate. Several lengthy phone conversations with Amanda’s stepfather, Chris Mellas, had further convinced Mark that her family firmly believed in her innocence. I didn’t want to draw any conclusions of my own unless I could fully examine the record and evidence.

When I delved into the case, I was struck by both the similarities and the differences between this case and WM3. In some sense, Knox is a photo negative of WM3, with the same ultimate effect.

Both involved horrific, gory murders of low-risk, innocent young people who had the promise of their whole lives to look forward to.

One took place in a scruffy southern city on the edge of the interstate, a place many kids considered “West Nowheresville” and yearned to flee as soon as they were old enough. The other happened in a historic Umbrian hill town that attracted adventurous students from around the world.

One involved defendants who were marginal outsiders from poor and broken families whom the rest of the world considered losers. The other involved a beautiful young woman and a handsome young man, both solidly middle-class with promising futures ahead of them.

Both hinged on a questionable confession after many hours of police interrogation without a lawyer present—one by a scared and confused seventeen-year-old boy; the other by a girl just out of her teens who barely spoke the language being shouted at her.

Both were rushes to judgment, prosecuted as satanic ritual murders on the basis of fear and superstition rather than solid evidence and analysis.

Both became passionate, controversial, international causes whose balance was finally tipped by the lack of a match between the defendants and DNA found at the crime scenes.

Knox also had the kind of sensational elements that had captured world imagination with the Ramsey case: a beautiful girl and a vicious, senseless murder in the house where she lived. But in this case, the beautiful girl was all grown up, and there were actually two girls: one a victim, the other a suspect.

Through Mark’s exchanges with Amanda’s family, I was contacted by Steve Moore, a retired FBI agent currently working as deputy director of public safety at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California—not a bad job if you like the beach and warm weather as much as I do. Steve had been in my behavioral science classes during new agent training at Quantico. Though we knew and had worked with a lot of the same people, I didn’t remember meeting him. He had never met Amanda, but he had become so moved by her case that he decided to conduct his own investigation, with the family’s cooperation but independent of them.

I have not been universally praising of all my FBI colleagues over the years, but when I looked up Steve Moore, he turned out to be the real deal. He had spent his entire FBI career dealing with violent crime; and as his last assignment, he ran the FBI’s Los Angeles–based “Extra-Territorial Squad,” which was tasked with responding to any acts of terrorism against the United States in Asia and Pakistan. He agreed to organize and supply me with all of the relevant case materials, including records, photographs, videos and various transcripts. He told me he respected my work and me too much to try to influence me in any way and genuinely wanted to know if I felt he was on the right track in interpreting the evidence.

Before the case was resolved, Steve would admit to me, “When you told me about the grief you took after the Ramsey case, I didn’t really understand how petty and mean people can get. In my whole life, I have never been vilified by people like I have since I got involved in the Knox case.”

 

I reviewed all of the material presented to me and read everything I could, both positive and negative. All of the evidence pointed squarely in one direction: Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were innocent.

Clearly, Italian criminal justice authorities did not want my help. What I could do, Steve, Mark and I concluded, was to speak out as much as possible and try to educate people as to what this case was really about rather than the salacious tale of sexual obsession with which the media had so fallen in love.

As it turned out, Amanda and Raffaele did not suffer quite so long as the West Memphis Three, but they still spent four years in prison—the first without being formally charged. They were convicted in October 2008 and released by an appeals judge in October 2011. Nearly everything about their case demonstrates the same systemic weaknesses and personal failings as the Arkansas case. The only other difference, ironically, is that in Perugia, they had the real killer in custody almost right away. Yet that didn’t stop the persecution of the other two defendants.

The overwhelming initial public impression in this highly publicized case was that the beautiful, seductive “Foxy Knoxy” was guilty of brutally murdering her roommate in a frenzy of satanic lust. Books have been published asserting her guilt, and even today, world opinion is wildly mixed on whether she should have been let out of prison. Let’s go through this case and see why it quickly became a travesty of justice and why Italian authorities should have been able to determine that right from the beginning.