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Despite a manslaughter conviction against a man whose DNA and footprints were found at the scene, and a 2015 Supreme Court verdict finally exonerating Knox and her short-lived boyfriend Raffaele Solecito, doubts about her role persist, particularly in Italy, among members to Kercher’s family and to the innocent man he accused.
This was partly due to the misattribution of the murder to the owner of a bar where she worked.
Here’s a look at the main details of the case:
Knox was a 20-year-old American student who had recently arrived in the university town of Perugia when her British roommate Kercher was found dead in her bedroom in the flat she shared with two Italian roommates on November 2, 2007.
The murder attracted worldwide attention as suspicion fell on Knox and Sollecito, with whom she had been involved for about a week.
Headlines calling her “Foxy Knoxie” went around the world, fueled by sensational photos of her and Sollecito in a tender moment outside the murder scene and in a store buying underwear for Knox, whose apartment had been turned into a crime scene.
Knox and Solecito were convicted in their first trial, but after another round of false convictions, they were eventually acquitted by Italy’s highest court in 2015.
What is a defamation case?
Knox was charged with defaming the Congolese bar owner who hired her part-time, based on two police-typed statements she signed during a long night of questioning just days after the murder.
She recanted in a four-page handwritten note the following afternoon, but the note showed her confusion as she tried to reconcile the signed statements with her own conflicting memories.
During her first trial, Knox said police pressure led her to initially accuse an innocent man.
The defamation conviction and three-year sentence stood until the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Knox’s rights had been violated during questioning without a lawyer or qualified interpreter.
Based on that decision, Italy’s highest court overturned the conviction last November and ruled that the two statements typed by the police were inadmissible.
He ordered a new trial, stipulating that the court consider only Knox’s handwritten statement for elements of defamation.
Who is Patrick Lumumba?
Patrick Lumumba is the Congolese bar owner who hired Knox part-time.
He was arrested and held as a suspect in the murder based on Knox’s overnight interrogation and despite her handwritten statement, which later recanted the charge.
Because of the publicity of the case, Lumumba left Italy and lives in Eastern Europe with his family.
Lumumba joined the current prosecution as a civil party, as allowed under Italian law, and continues to believe that Knox had a role in the murder.
Who is Rudi Hermann Gede?
Rudi Hermann Gede was convicted of Kercher’s murder in an accelerated trial that carried a lighter sentence.
A drifter who lived in Perugia, Guede was arrested in Germany, where he fled after the murder.
He initially told a friend in an overheard conversation that Knox had nothing to do with the crime, but after he was returned to Italy, he blamed Knox and denied any involvement.
He was released from prison in 2021 after serving 13 years of a 16-year term that included a ruling that he did not act alone.
Guede was recently ordered to wear a monitoring bracelet and not leave his home at night after a former girlfriend accused him of physical and sexual abuse. An investigation was underway.
Who Was Meredith Kercher?
Meredith Kercher was a 21-year-old student at Leeds University who was starting a year’s study in Perugia, living in a rented flat with Knox and two Italian roommates.
Friends, who call her “Mez,” describe her as “calm, sweet and shy.”
The youngest of four children, she grew up on the outskirts of London.
She was last seen on the evening of November 1 having dinner with British friends in a neighboring apartment.
Kercher’s partially naked body was found on November 2 with her throat slit under a duvet in her locked bedroom.
How did Knox get his life back together?
Knox returned to the United States after an appeals court overturned her first conviction in 2011, after four years behind bars.
Although she hoped to resume her life as a student, she was dogged by public attention as her court cases continued in Italy.
Now 36 and a mother of two young children, Knox campaigns for criminal justice reform and against coerced confessions, drawing on her experience.
She has a podcast with her husband and a new limited series based on her bestselling book in development for Hulu, which includes Monica Lewinsky among the executive producers.
She’s also recorded a series on resilience for a meditation app and is an aspiring comedian, recently posting an Instagram routine about motherhood.
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