In November 2007, British exchange student Meredith Kercher was found
dead in her cottage in Perugia Italy. Kercher's roommate Amanda Knox was convicted of murder,
and fully exonerated in 2015, but her behavior during the investigation was
strange at times. Let's examine some of Amanda Knox's shadiest moments.
In November 2020, Amanda Knox had some thoughts on the U.S. presidential election,
and decided to tweet them. She wrote,
"Whatever happens, the next four years can't be
as bad as that four-year study abroad I did in Italy, right?"
Many felt that her words were insensitive,
and weren’t afraid to tell her. One Twitter user replied,
"Utterly disgusting thing to say let alone think!"
Another said,
“This is so disgusting. No care for all the people terrified for their lives over the next 4 years.
No care for the memory of Meredith Kercher, or her family who will surely hear of this vile tweet."
Knox hasn't responded to her detractors, or even deleted the tweet as of the making of this video.
There are many reasons why Amanda Knox was considered a suspect early in Meredith Kercher’s
murder case. Some of her behavior during the investigation can only be described as strange.
For example, Italian police officer Giacinto Profazio claimed Knox allegedly did gymnastics
after being questioned by investigators. He testified,
"I was also told that she did the splits and a cartwheel in one of the rooms at the station.
Then later, after being questioned all night, she burst into tears."
Knox admits to some of the odd interrogation room exercises,
but told Diane Sawyer for ABC News that she was, quote, "just stretching." Knox said.
“As far as cartwheels or splits, I never did a cartwheel.
I did do the splits. I did the splits, and that's once."
When Sawyer asked her if Knox could understand why that choice was strange to people Knox replied,
"What's strange is why these things got mischaracterized."
Doing splits in a police station does not make Knox a murderer,
but it did make many people scratch their heads.
Amanda Knox's behavior at the police station involved more than just doing splits.
It was reported that she sat on her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito's lap at
one point, and that they were inappropriately affectionate until a police officer intervened.
Knox was apparently also famished in the immediate aftermath of her roommate's murder,
at least, according to her diary which was
supposedly excerpted by Italian journalist Fiorenza Sarzanini.
In her book, "Amanda and the Others", Sarzanini quoted the following passage from
Knox's personal journal, which includes another bizarrely callous-sounding attempt at humor:
"I'm dying of hunger. I really want to say that I could murder a pizza but that doesn't seem right."
There is also an infamous video of Knox and Sollecito kissing just feet from her house,
which was a crime scene at the time. The couple kisses quickly three times,
and then Knox appears downtrodden afterwards.
Knox told Diane Sawyer she was just staring off thinking about fate. She said,
"My friend had been murdered and it could [have] just as easily been me."
The reports of PDA in front of police only further perpetuated the salacious media portrait of Knox,
described by NBC News as quote, "a sexual aggressor, a femme fatale."
Testifying in court during Amanda Knox's trial,
Meredith Kercher's friend, Robyn Butterworth, said,
"While I was there I found Amanda's behavior
very strange. She had no emotion while everyone else was upset."
While it may seem unfair to judge Knox's behavior in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event,
her actions did have an effect on others who were also grieving the loss of Kercher.
When a friend commented that they hoped Kercher did not suffer while dying,
Knox was quoted as responding,
"How could she not? She got her f---ing throat slit."
When confronted by Diane Sawyer about the remark, Knox admitted to regretting the comment, saying,
"I wish I could have been more mature about it, yeah."
Between the trauma of the loss, and the ordeal of being accused of the crime, Knox reportedly felt
disconnected from her friends almost immediately after Meredith’s death, and for years afterwards.
Many observers were confused by Amanda Knox's cavalier attitude toward her trial - particularly
in the way that she dressed. During a Valentine's Day 2009 appearance,
she wore jeans and a t-shirt displaying the song title "All You Need Is Love."
Knox explained her wardrobe choice to ABC News, saying,
"I didn't realize how very intensely I was being scrutinized."
The Seattle Times also compared Knox's courtroom behavior to that of her ex-boyfriend,
Raffaele Sollecito, noting Knox's calm demeanor. Sollecito, on the other hand, was said to have,
"[A]ppeared more tense and kept a lower-profile;
he faces the cameras only when briefly waving to his family sitting in front of them."
While Knox may write off her perceived flippancy to being youthfully aloof, criminologist Saverio
Fortunato told The Seattle Times there could be an explanation for Knox's behavior.
"It could be a sign of malaise and confusion. Facing the wounds of a trial
can push you to adopt a certain behavior to fight off the fear,
which can be interpreted from the outside as inappropriate."
Amanda Knox admitted to acting strangely throughout thes murder investigation in
her 2013 book, "Waiting to Be Heard," in which she describes
her awkwardness while accompanying Italian authorities to the crime scene.
Knox wrote that,
"[I] sang out 'Ta-dah' and thrust out [my] arms 'like the lead in a musical, [a gesture
meant] to ease the tension for [myself], because this was so surreal and terrifying."
Knox was 21 at the time of Kercher's murder,
and her youth has often been cited as a reason for her unusual behavior and coping mechanisms.
Amanda Knox's first interview after being released from prison
was with Diane Sawyer for ABC News. The eyes of the country were watching.
Body language and communications expert Vanessa Van Edwards analyzed Knox's body language in
a blog post, revealing what she called, quote, "red flags," and indicating that,
“[Knox’s] body language did not match her verbal answers."
For example, Van Edwards noted that Knox verbally answers "No," but affirmatively
nods when asked if she was in her home on the night of Meredith Kercher's murder.
Van Edwards also noted possibly deceptive behavior when Knox pauses and deeply swallows when asked,
"Do you know anything else you have not told police, that you have not said in this book?"
Van Edwards pointed out that Knox's words don't
match her facial expressions all the time. When she says,
"It could very well have been me,"
meaning she could have been murdered instead of Kercher, her face is seemingly stoic,
leading the expert to again point out how her words didn’t align with
her body language, which could indicate guilt.
Amanda Knox's Diane Sawyer interview for ABC News may have raised red flags for some people, but
it's not Knox’s only interview to raise eyebrows. Knox appeared on "The Ray D'Arcy Show" in Ireland
in 2018, where she compared her experience in Italy to the plight of the Irish people.
She said,
"I got letters from lots of Irish people who really understood, like, 'Of course,
authority taking advantage of a vulnerable person and spinning it in a bad way? Of course!.'"
She went on to say that Irish fans had sent her rousing Irish songs in
solidarity. She then proceeded to sing the lyrics.
D'Arcy called Knox's singing,
"The oddest thing I've ever witnessed."
Eight years after being exonerated of Meredith Kercher's murder,
Amanda Knox traveled to Italy to participate in an event for the Italy Innocence Project,
a non-profit focused on wrongful convictions. In addition to the crush
of news coverage of Knox's return abroad, Knox promoted it herself.
In a Medium essay, Knox revealed,
"[I will] speak about wrongful convictions and trial by media."
On social media, she posted a photo of her pretending to hang from a cliff and captioned it,
"3 Days till I return to Italy for the first time since leaving prison. Feeling frayed,
so I made my own inspirational workplace poster. 'Hang in there!' Just imagine I'm a kitten."
The Kercher family wasn't impressed with Knox's post. Their lawyer,
Francesco Maresca, described Knox's behavior as attention-seeking,
and declared her return to Italy for a criminal justice conference, quote, "inappropriate."
Maresca continued,
"The murder is a tragic memory for the Kercher family. [...] It's
also an injustice for them as they still don't know the full truth."
Meredith's sister, Stephanie Kercher, echoed this same sentiment in an essay for the Daily Mail,
and hinted that the family doubted Knox's innocence. She wrote,
"It is difficult to come to terms with not knowing exactly what happened that
night. [...] Whether you believe the guilt or innocence of the accused
there are still contradictions and discrepancies in the judge's summary."
Amanda Knox returned to Seattle in 2011, when she was exonerated of Meredith Kercher's murder.
Upon returning to the U.S., Amanda Knox lived quietly for about a year until she
made her life public again. She now works as a journalist, and works with The Innocence Project.
Knox has public, active Instagram and Twitter accounts, which may seem strange
for a public figure who once decried the media obsession with her murder case.
However, Knox explained her decision to make her social media accounts visible
to the public in a 2019 Medium essay. She wrote,
"I [made my social media accounts public] because I just wanted to have what every
other person around me had, the freedom to shout into the wind and say, 'Here I am.”
Knox married fellow journalist Christopher Robinson in February 2020. Knox and Robinson
co-host a podcast called "Labyrinths," where they,
"[D]elve into stories of getting lost and found again through compassionate interviews,
philosophical rants, and playful debate with fascinating people.”
She's certainly made brave decisions since returning home.
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