In September 2007, Amanda Knox decided to do what a lot of university students dream of doing with the right amount of money and courage: study on the other side of the world. The University of Washington student, just 20 at the time, travelled to Italy to improve her Italian, make a few friends, and have the time of her life.
In her memoir, Amanda Knox: Waiting to Be Heard, she recounts the day that changed her life forever, and the following years. When Knox came home to find her roommate dead on the floor, an international media frenzy took over her life and created a new worldwide perception of her in a matter of days.
Knox returned to the apartment she shared with three other young women after spending a night with her boyfriend. They found the windows smashed and blood in the bathroom. By the time the police arrived, they had found Meredith Kercher’s body under a mattress. Kercher was a British student, studying at the same university as Knox in Perugia, Italy.
After the discovery, the police kept Knox for hours to discuss the case and soon these talks turned into interrogations and eventually to custody. It was then that Knox realized that the police had pinned her as a main suspect. In her memoir, Knox explains that while she and Kercher had their disagreements, the media blew this fact, and many others, out of proportion. Mishandled evidence, assumptions, and untruths in tabloids worldwide were just some of the things that haunted Knox for years to come.
She says that people thought she displayed “odd behaviour” for someone who hadn’t killed her friend just less than 24 hours ago. The apparent evidence continued to stack up when, during a five-day interrogation, she blurted out that her boss at the restaurant where she worked might have had something to do with the murder. Her intention wasn’t to lie, but Knox had been subjected to harsh interrogations with no lawyers, food, or water, and little knowledge of the language.
Knox’s story of being accused of a crime she didn’t commit while trapped in a foreign country, and of the relief she felt when she was acquitted after spending four years in jail, will touch your heart.
