Waiting To Be Heard - A Memoir Part 38

The other testimony came from a witness named Hekuran Kokomani, an Albanian man the prosecution called to prove that Raffaele and I both knew Rudy Guede. Our lawyers argued that Raffaele had never met Guede. I'd said "Hi" to him once when we hung out at the apartment downstairs. My other encounter with him was taking his drink order at Le Chic.

Kokomani said he'd seen the three of us together on Halloween, the day before the murder.

A ma.s.sive lie.

Kokomani's testimony made the pretrial seem like a farce. According to him, after dinner on Halloween, driving along Viale Sant'Antonio, the busy thoroughfare just above our house, he came upon a black garbage bag in the middle of the road. When he got out of his car, he realized the "bag" was two people: Raffaele and me. He told the court that Raffaele punched him, and I pulled out a huge knife the length of a saber, lifting it high over my head. "Raffaele said, 'Don't worry about her. She's a girl,' " Kokomani testified. "Then I threw olives at her face."

As if this weren't nonsensical enough, next, Guede, whom Kokomani said he recognized from a bed-and-breakfast where he, Kokomani, worked, ambled up to the car. Kokomani said he asked Guede, "What's with the knife?"

"Guede said, 'Hey, brother, it's a party. We're just cutting some cake.'

"I know it was Amanda," Kokomani continued, "because I once met her uncle. Raffaele and Amanda were walking down the street. It was August. He offered me a beer." I wasn't in Perugia in August. I didn't know Raffaele yet. I don't have an uncle in Italy.

I was morbidly curious about Guede and simultaneously completely repulsed. Mostly I was disappointed. I had thought we'd have the chance to confront him. But he let his lawyers do all the talking.

Speaking for Guede, his lawyer, Walter Biscotti, claimed that his client was innocent. He said, essentially, "Rudy has told me his side of the story. What he says is not as outrageous as it seems. Rudy was at the villa because he and Meredith had agreed to meet and had fooled around before he went into the bathroom. He has indicated Knox and Sollecito are the actual perpetrators of the crime.

"Isn't that possible?" Biscotti asked. "Isn't that what the evidence shows? It shows him being there, and he's admitted to that. He says he left because he was scared. Of course he was scared! He's a young black man, living the best he could, abandoned by his parents. He stole sometimes, but out of necessity. I don't think there's enough evidence to say that he killed. The knife has Amanda's DNA, and the bra clasp has Raffaele's. Rudy admits that he was there, he tells what happened, and I believe him."

No witnesses were called for Guede. His lawyers could only interpret the evidence the prosecution had provided. They argued that his DNA had been found at the crime scene because he was scrambling to help Meredith and that he left because he was afraid. I remember his lawyer saying Guede didn't go to the disco to give himself an alibi but to let off steam. He escaped to Germany because he was worried that he'd be wrongly accused.

Biscotti was a little man who wore suits the color of ... well, biscotti. His gray, curly hair sat like a thick rain cloud on his head. He came across as being convinced of the one thing no one else believed. He knew Rudy, Rudy was a good kid, and because he believed in his client's innocence, "Rudy should go free," he said.

The pretrial lasted for five and a half weeks-this wasn't surprising, because it was only held once or twice a week. Each time we met I would take the claustrophobic van ride, and when we arrived I would have the stomach-twisting encounter with the press. Even if I understood Italian pretty well by then, the technical discussions about DNA would have been impenetrable for me. I was weary of this soul-killing routine. It seemed to me that it was time for me to be freed and go home.

My family was as optimistic as I was. I had been in prison for about a year, and the anniversary seemed an appropriate time for my release. But the closer we got to the end, the more pessimistic my lawyers grew. "The judge will probably rule that you'll have to be tried for murder, because there's so much attention on this case," Carlo said. "We have to be ready for that."

This broke my heart. "Why can't everything be resolved in the pretrial?"

"It's more complicated than that, Amanda. It's likely going to take a jury. We will have to call witnesses."

But Luciano and Carlo never completely lost hope. "It's possible this could end well," Carlo said. I clung to that chance.

Still, there were reasons to be worried. Because the prosecution was withholding information, there was evidence I couldn't refute: the knife, my "b.l.o.o.d.y" footprints, Raffaele's DNA on Meredith's bra clasp. And how would we fight the prosecution's claim that we'd cleaned up the crime scene? I went to sleep every night telling myself that it would work out because we were innocent-and because it was so clear that Guede was guilty and lying.

My lawyers argued exhaustively that Meredith and I had been friends-that there was no animosity between us. They argued that we had no connection to Guede, that Kokomani was a lunatic. But the case hinged on DNA, not on logic.

On October 28, the final day, I got to speak for myself. Since the judge understood English, I stood up without my interpreter and tried to explain what had happened during my interrogation. I told the judge that I hadn't meant to name Patrick or to cause confusion but that the interrogation had been the most brutish, terrifying experience of my life. I'd been exhausted to begin with, and I had gotten so scared and confused that it was as though I went out of my mind. My interrogators told me that they had evidence I'd been at the villa, that Raffaele was no longer vouching for my whereabouts that night, that I had been through such a horrible trauma, I had amnesia. "I believed them! I'm innocent!" I cried.

I was shaking, so nervous I couldn't go on. I didn't mean to cry, but I wept uncontrollably. Recalling the interrogation struck me at my core. I was so eager for a positive decision, so eager for this ordeal to be over, that I couldn't keep myself together. Afterward, I hunched over in my chair, ashamed of having lost hold of my emotions. Luciano and Carlo patted my head and rubbed my back. "Don't worry," Carlo insisted. "You did fine."

When the prosecution rested their case, Mignini demanded a life sentence for Guede and a full trial for Raffaele and me.

After the judge retired to his chambers, we were each taken to a different empty office in the courthouse to wait for his decision. Raffaele folded a page from that day's newspaper into a flower, which the guards brought to me. But I was focused on Guede, who was being held in the room next to mine. I could hear him talking with the guards, cracking jokes, and chuckling. I was fuming! I wanted to beat on the wall and tell him to shut up. His nonchalance incensed me. I thought, Does no one else feel this?

Six hours into what would be a day-long wait, I got to see my lawyers. "It's unusual for the judge to deliberate this long," Carlo said excitedly. "If the decision were easy, it would have happened already."

Carlo's optimism fueled my own. Maybe the judge will be gutsy enough to see how preposterous Hekuran Kokomani's wild story was and the truth in Sarah Gino's questions. Oh G.o.d, this is taking forever. It must be a good sign.

Late Tuesday afternoon, when the sky was dark, word came up. The judge was ready.

I entered the courtroom. I could barely walk.

Judge Micheli read Guede's verdict first: Guilty for the s.e.xual a.s.sault and murder of Meredith Kercher, with a sentence of thirty years.

The verdict didn't surprise me at all-for a second, I was enormously relieved. I thought, He's the one who did it. The judge's delivery was so flat he could have been reading the ingredients off a box of bran flakes. Still, my chest clenched when I heard "thirty years." Not because I pitied Guede. I'd been so focused on whether he would be found guilty or innocent, I hadn't thought about the length of his sentence. I was twenty-one; thirty years was more time than I'd been alive-by a lot.

I breathed in.

"The court orders that Knox, Amanda, and Sollecito, Raffaele, be sent to trial."

I broke down in huge, gulping sobs. I'd made a heartfelt plea-"I'm telling you I'm innocent! I'm sorry for any of the confusion I've contributed."

The judge hadn't believed me.

On the heels of the announcement "This court is adjourned," the guards started walking me out.

"Amanda, don't cry," Carlo called. "Don't worry. This isn't the end. The trial is different from pretrial. Both sides get to put forth witnesses. We're going to a.n.a.lyze everything. We're going to prove them wrong."

I wanted him to be right. But all I could think was if the court hadn't believed me this time, why would they believe me the next time?

Chapter 24

OctoberDecember 2008

In prison there is never just one stress.

That phrase was becoming my mantra.

About a week before my pretrial ended, another traumatic episode began. One gray day, when I was outside exercising, I saw some prisoners I had become friends with. "Hey!" I yelled. "Good morning!"

They glared at me but said nothing. I walked away.

Something is wrong, but what? What's going on?

After walking a couple of laps by myself, even my headphones didn't block out the painful silence. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. I was too upset to keep going, but I was afraid to stop for fear that whatever was happening would catch me as soon as I stood still.

Finally the guards called me to the office of the ispettore, a round middle-aged woman with short, wispy orange-dyed hair. I found her standing behind her desk pointing at a copy of Corriere dell'Umbria, the local paper, spread open in front of her. "How do you explain this?" she demanded.

"Spiegare che cosa?" I asked, baffled. "Explain what?"

I could see that the headline said something about me.