Waiting To Be Heard - A Memoir Part 23

Writing brings order to my thoughts.

It always worked with my mom when I handed her my letter. She'd open it right away, while I stood by. She almost always cried when she read it. She'd hug me and say, "Thank you!" and a.s.sure me that everything was okay.

That's what I wanted to have happen now. Somehow the kindness from the nun and that embrace from Agente Lupa had encouraged me that it would.

I believed it was only a matter of time before the police understood that I was trying to help them and I would be released. The guard would unlock the cell. Without leading me by the arm, she'd escort me to an office where I could reclaim my hiking boots, my cell phone, my life. I'd walk out and into my mom's arms.

I thought I'd made it clear that I couldn't stand by what I'd said during my interrogation, that those words and my signature didn't count. We would have to talk again. This time they would have to listen and not shout.

I thought about what to do while I waited for my memoriale to get pa.s.sed to the right readers and the paperwork to get filled in. Since I'd never been in a prison before-and I'd never be here again-I decided to record what I saw so I wouldn't forget.

I felt I had a duty to observe and collect information, just like a tourist who writes a travelogue or a war correspondent who witnesses devastation.

I inspected the gray-green paint on the walls, faded with age, and the splotches of white where the plaster was crumbling. A message had been left by a former occupant. Near the door, below eye level, in bright red lipstick, was an imprint of her puckered lips. Next to it, written in block letters, was a message: "liberta, si esce, esco presto"-"FREEDOM, ONE LEAVES, I LEAVE SOON."

It was as though these words had been left for me. It was a message that added to my hope. I continued my inventory.

The barred window, about three feet by four feet, was thankfully large enough to let in light and allow me to look out onto the world I thought I'd left behind only temporarily. I saw a row of cone-shaped cypresses lined up on a hilltop. They reminded me of the trees Deanna and I saw two months ago, on the long, winding, and miscalculated hike from the Perugia train station-back when I'd been so sure of myself and so excited to see how my Italian adventure would unfold.

As I gathered this insider's information, I felt more like an observer than a partic.i.p.ant. I found that being watched by a guard every time I peed or showered or just lay on my bed seemed less offensive when I looked at it with an impersonal eye. I saw the absurdity in it and doc.u.mented it in my head.

But no matter how much I tried to distance myself from my physical surroundings, I was stuck with the anger and self-doubt that were festering inside me. I was furious for putting myself in this situation, panicked that I'd steered the investigation off course by delaying the police's search for the killer.

I thought back to the night of my interrogation-the police hovering over me, crowding in on me, pressing my cell phone in my face.

I imagined what I should have said: "No! You're wrong!"

That's what people believe they would have done in my place. They're certain they'd have held to the truth whatever the cost. They're certain they wouldn't have broken down and not known what the truth was anymore. That is what I would have imagined for myself: I would not have crumbled.

Chapter 14

November 89, 2007

Two nights pa.s.sed with the metal door shut over my bars-an impenetrable s.h.i.+eld that locked me inside alone. In the morning, when the guard opened it, nothing had changed. I was still in isolation.

I drank the coffee in the mornings, but barely touched the food that came around on a cart twice a day, delivered by a woman in a white ap.r.o.n and a net bonnet. It later turned out that she was an employed prisoner, but then I thought she must be from the outside. I kept trying to elicit a sympathetic look-to make a connection, however slight. But I got the same mechanical stare that I was getting used to seeing on almost everyone.

In the middle of my second full day as a prisoner, two agenti led me out of my cell, downstairs, outside, across the prison compound, and into the center building where I'd had my mug shot taken and my pa.s.sport confiscated. There, in an empty office converted into a mini courtroom, seven people were waiting silently for me when I walked into the room, including two men, who stood as I entered.

Speaking in English, the taller, younger man, with spiky gray hair, said, "I'm Carlo Dalla Vedova. I'm from Rome." He gestured toward a heavier-set man with smooth white hair. "This is Luciano Ghirga, from Perugia." Each man was dressed in a crisp suit. "We're your lawyers. Your family hired us. The American emba.s.sy gave him our names. Please, sit in this chair. And don't say anything."

I was so grateful for my family's help. Finally I had allies, people to get me out of this unbearable situation.

Also in the room were three women. The one in black robes was Judge Claudia Matteini. Her secretary, seated next to her, announced, "Please stand."

In an emotionless monotone, the judge read, "You, Amanda Marie Knox, born 9 July 1987 in Seattle, Was.h.i.+ngton, U.S.A., are formally under investigation for the murder of Meredith Kercher. How do you respond? You have the right to remain silent."

I was stunned. My lower jaw plummeted. My legs trembled. I swung my face to the left to look at the only people I recognized in the room-Monica Napoleoni, the black-haired, taloned homicide chief; a male officer from my interrogation; and Pubblico Ministero Giuliano Mignini, the prosecutor, who I still thought was the mayor. Napoleoni was resting her chin on her hand glowering at me, studying my reaction. She seemed to be enjoying this.

Until the judge spoke, I had had no idea that I was being accused of murder.

I felt as though I'd been ambushed.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" the judge asked.

I turned to look at my lawyers. Carlo touched my hand and said, "Don't say anything now. We need to talk first."

There hadn't been enough time between their hiring and this preliminary hearing for Carlo and Luciano to meet with me. But more time might not have made a difference. It turned out that, mysteriously, Mignini had barred Raffaele's lawyers from seeing him before his hearing. Would the prosecutor have treated me the same? I think so. I can't be certain who ordered that I be put in isolation and not allowed to watch TV or to read, to cut me off from news from the outside world. But I believe that the police and prosecution purposely kept me uninformed so I would arrive at my first hearing totally unprepared to defend myself.

I do know this: if I'd met with my lawyers, I could have explained that I was innocent, that I knew nothing about the murder, that I imagined things during my interrogation that weren't true. The only thing my lawyers knew about me was that when I talked I got myself in trouble. I understand their impulse to keep me silent then, but in the end, my silence harmed me as much as anything I'd previously said.

When the judge asked if I had anything to say, I said no.

And with that one word I gave up my only chance to stand up for myself, my only chance to tell the truth.

I turned to my lawyers. "Please," I whispered urgently, "I have to explain."

"No, no, not right now," they said. "Don't say anything."

The whole hearing took less than ten minutes.

Just before I was taken back to my cell, Carlo said, "We'll come see you as soon as we can. And we're trying to work it out so that your mother can visit you."

Agenti led me back to the female prison. With each door that locked behind me I felt as if I were walking into a series of shrinking cages. I was trapped. Once I was in the smallest cage, my cell, I wailed.

It would be a long time before my Italian would be good enough to read Judge Matteini's nineteen-page report, which came out, and was leaked to the press, the next day. But my lawyers told me the gist of it. The judge said, "There were no doubts" that Patrick, Raffaele, and I were involved. Our motive, according to her, was that Raffaele and I wanted "to try a new sensation," while Patrick wanted to have s.e.x with Meredith. When she refused, the three of us tried "to force her will," using Raffaele's pocketknife.

I couldn't believe anyone could think that of me.

The report continued: "It is possible to reconstruct what happened on the evening of November 1. Sollecito Raffaele and Knox Amanda spent the entire afternoon smoking has.h.i.+sh."

Judge Matteini claimed that I met Patrick at a "previously arranged" time and that Raffaele, "bored of the same old evening"-a phrase Raffaele had once posted online about himself-came along.

She went on to say that we hadn't called 112, the emergency number for the Carabinieri military police; that the Postal Police arrived at 12:35 P.M., and that our calls to 112 came afterward, at 12:51 P.M. and 12:54 P.M., suggesting that the police's appearance at the house took us by surprise and our calls were an attempt at orchestrating the appearance of our innocence. It wasn't until our trial that this accusation was proven to be erroneous.

The report said that in Raffaele's second statement, made on November 5, he changed his story. Instead of saying that we'd stayed at his apartment all night, as he'd done originally, he told police we'd left my apartment to go downtown at around 8:30 or 9 P.M., that I went to Le Chic and he returned to his apartment. He said that I'd convinced him to lie.

A b.l.o.o.d.y footprint allegedly compatible with Raffaele's Nikes was found at our villa, and the pocketknife he carried on his beltloop was presumed to be compatible with the murder weapon.

The judge's report concluded that we "lost the appearance that [we] were persons informed about the facts and became suspects" when I confessed that Patrick had killed Meredith; that I wasn't sure whether or not Raffaele was there but that I woke up the next morning in his bed.

It was just the start of the many invented stories and giant leaps the prosecution would make to "prove" I was involved in the murder-and that my lawyers would have to try to knock down to prove my innocence.