Waiting To Be Heard - A Memoir Part 54

He brought up the disputed theory that Raffaele's kitchen knife was the murder weapon, in addition to a new theory that I'd carried the knife in my "very capacious bag." Why would I? "It's probable, considering Raffaele's interest in knives, that Amanda was advised and convinced by her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, to carry a knife with her ... during the night along streets that could have seemed not very safe to pa.s.s through at night by a girl."

The lining of my bag wasn't cut. The police found no blood in my bag. How can I prove what I didn't do?

The prosecution had based their case on misinterpreted and tainted forensic evidence and had relied heavily on speculation. But Judge Ma.s.sei's faith was blind. Patrizia Stefanoni would not "offer false interpretations and readings," he wrote.

The appeal wouldn't be a redo of the first trial. Italy, like the United States, has three levels of justice-the lower court, the Court of Appeals, and the highest court, the Corte Suprema di Ca.s.sazione, their version of our Supreme Court. The difference is that, in Italy, someone like me is required to go through all three levels, all the way to the Ca.s.sazione, whose verdict is final.

Cases often take turns and twists that would surprise and unsettle most Americans. Even if you're acquitted at level one, the prosecution can ask the Court of Appeals to overturn the verdict. If the appeals court finds you guilty, it can raise your sentence. Or it can decide that a second look is unnecessary and send you on to the Ca.s.sazione for the final stamp on the lower court's decision-in Raffaele's and my cases, to serve out our twenty-five- and twenty-six-year sentences.

At each level, the verdict is official, and the sentence goes into immediate effect unless the next court overturns it.

In Italy's lower and intermediate levels, judges and jurors decide the verdict. And instead of focusing on legal errors, as we do in the United States, the Italian appellate court will reopen the case, look at new evidence, and hear additional testimony-if they think it's deserved.

In our appeal request, we asked the court to appoint independent experts to review the DNA on the knife and the bra clasp, and to a.n.a.lyze a sperm stain on the pillow found underneath Meredith's body that the prosecution had maintained was irrelevant. In their appeal request, the prosecution complained about what they thought was a lenient sentence and demanded life in prison for Raffaele and me.

I read and reread the Ma.s.sei report, looking for discrepancies and flawed reasoning. I'm not a lawyer, but I had an insider's perspective on the case, three years in prison, and eleven months in court. In one of Guede's depositions, he claimed I'd come home the night of the murder, rung the doorbell, and that Meredith had let me in. Obviously he didn't know it was our household habit to knock, not buzz. It was a little catch, but it was something my former Via della Pergola housemates, Laura and Filomena, could confirm.

Before arriving in Italy, Madison sent me lists breaking down the case by category and pressing me to consider it from different perspectives. Besides being a remarkable friend, Madison has, as part of her makeup, a stubborn, idealistic personality that insists on protesting wrongs and standing up for people she thinks need her help. I was lucky that she stood up for me.

For example, she wrote, "Witnesses: the prosecution knowingly used unreliable witnesses.

"Interrogation: the police were under enormous pressure to solve the murder quickly.

"There's a pattern of the police/prosecution ignoring indications of your innocence. This must be pointed out. You were called guilty a month before forensic results, you were still considered guilty even though what you said in your interrogation wasn't true, obviously false witnesses were used against you. The jury needs to know that you are being railroaded. How can you emphasize that? You can't just say 'I'm a scapegoat.' You must present a series of convincing points."

I knew that the most critical point was to be able to say why I'd named Patrick during my interrogation.

The prosecution and civil parties argued that I was a manipulative, lying criminal mastermind. My word meant nothing. The court would always presume I was a liar. If, in their mind, I was a liar, it was an easy leap to murderer.

I had been done in by my own words. I'd told the judges and jury things like "I didn't mean to do harm" and "You don't know what it's like to be manipulated, to think that you were wrong, to have so much doubt and pressure on you that you try to come up with answers other than those in your memory."

Thankfully Madison had researched the science on false confessions. She found Saul Ka.s.sin, a psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. A specialist in wrongful convictions, he took the mystery out of what had happened to me.

Before my interrogation, I believed, like many people, that if someone were falsely accused, they wouldn't, couldn't, be swayed from the truth while under interrogation. I never would have believed that I could be pressured into confessing to something I hadn't done. For three years I berated myself for not having been stronger. I'm an honest person. During that interrogation, I had nothing to hide, and a stake in the truth-I desperately wanted the police to solve Meredith's murder. But now I know that innocent people often confess. The records kept of people convicted of a crime and later exonerated by DNA evidence show that the DNA of 25 percent of them didn't match the DNA left at the scene. The DNA testing showed that one in four innocent people ended up confessing as I did. And experts believe that even more innocent people confess, both in cases with and without DNA evidence.

According to Ka.s.sin, there are different types of false confessions. The most common is "compliant," which usually happens when the suspect is threatened with punishment or isolation. The encounter becomes so stressful, so unbearable, that suspects who know they're innocent eventually give in just to make the uncomfortably harsh questioning stop. "You'll get thirty years in prison if you don't tell us," says one interrogator. "I want to help you, but I can't unless you help us," says another.

This was exactly the good cop/bad cop routine the police had used on me.

Besides being compliant, I also showed signs of having made an "internalized" false confession. Sitting in that airless interrogation room in the questura, surrounded by people shouting at me during forty-three hours of questioning over five days, I got to the point, in the middle of the night, where I was no longer sure what the truth was. I started believing the story the police were telling me. They took me into a state where I was so fatigued and stressed that I started to wonder if I had witnessed Meredith's murder and just didn't remember it. I began questioning my own memory.

Ka.s.sin says that once suspects begin to distrust their own memory, they have almost no cognitive choice but to consider, possibly accept, and even mentally elaborate upon the interrogator's narrative of what happened. That's how beliefs are changed and false memories are formed.

That's what had happened to me.

I was so confused that my mind made up images to correspond with the scenario the police had concocted and thrust on me. For a brief time, I was brainwashed.

Three years after my "confession," I'd blocked out some of my interrogation. But the brain has ways of bringing up suppressed memories. My brain chooses flashbacks-sharp, painful flashes of memory that flicker, interrupting my conscious thoughts. My adrenaline responds as if it's happening in that moment. I remember the shouting, the figures of looming police officers, their hands touching me, the feeling of panic and of being surrounded, the incoherent images my mind made up to try to explain what could have happened to Meredith and to legitimize why the police were pressuring me.

This new knowledge didn't stop my nightmares or flashbacks, but I was so relieved to learn that what I'd been through wasn't unique to me. It had been catalogued! It had a name! As soon as I understood that what happened during my interrogation wasn't my fault, I started forgiving myself.

Ka.s.sin and others show that interrogations are intentionally designed to bewilder and deceive a suspect. Originally created to get highly trained, patriotic U.S. fighter pilots to sell out their country during the Korean War, one technique uses a tag team of investigators and tactics meant to induce exhaustion, agitation, and fear. It's especially potent on young, vulnerable witnesses like me. The method was designed not to elicit information but to plant it-specifically tailored to destroy an orderly thought process. After some hours, the subject gives the interrogators what they want-whether it's the truth or not.

In my case they'd put several interrogators in a room with me. For hours they yelled, screamed, kept me on edge. When they exhausted themselves, a fresh team replaced them. But I wasn't even allowed to leave to use the bathroom.

These were strategic measures, many of which are described in Ka.s.sin's report on police interrogation, "On the Psychology of Confessions: Does Innocence Put Innocents at Risk?" Reading it, I was flabbergasted to learn how by-the-book the police had been in their manipulation of me.

It had been the middle of the night. I'd already been questioned for hours at a time, days in a row. They tried to get me to contradict myself by homing in on what I'd done hour by hour, to confuse me, to cause me to lose track and get something wrong. They said I had no alibi. They lied, saying that Raffaele had told them I'd asked him to lie to the police. They wouldn't let me call my mom. They wouldn't let me leave the interrogation room. They were yelling at me in a language I didn't understand. They hit me and suggested that I had trauma-induced amnesia. They encouraged me to imagine what could have happened, encouraged me to "remember" the truth because they said I had to know the truth. They threatened to imprison me for thirty years and restrict me from seeing my family. At the time, I couldn't think of it as anything but terrifying and overwhelming.

That was exactly their point.

Sometimes I went over things I wish I'd done differently.

Number one, I would have written to the Kerchers. I wanted to tell them how much I liked their daughter. How lovingly she spoke of her family. Tell them that her death was a heartbreak to so many.

Number two, I'd have written Patrick an apology. Naming him was unforgivable, and he didn't deserve it, but I wanted to say that it wasn't about him. I was pushed so hard that I'd have named anyone. I was sorry.

I didn't write then because Luciano and Carlo said not to contact the Kerchers or Patrick. "They'll think it's a sympathy ploy," they said.

This made sense in the months after my arrest, but as my appeal approached, I had to set these wrongs right. I wrote letters to both Patrick and the Kerchers.

I wrote to Patrick first.

Dear Patrick,

The explanation you've heard a number of times about my interrogation is true and I'm sure you understand well since you were arrested the same night without being told why.

I feel guilty and sorry for my part in it.

To the Kerchers, I wrote,

I'm sorry for your loss, and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to say so. I'm not the one who killed your daughter and sister. I'm a sister, too, and I can only attempt to imagine the extent of your grief. In the relatively brief time that Meredith was part of my life, she was always kind to me. I think about her every day.

I showed the letters to Carlo. "It's not the right time," he said.

Disappointed and unsatisfied, I went back to my cell and came up with Plan B. I'd make a personal statement at the beginning of the trial. Unlike my declarations during the first trial, this one would be "spontaneous" in name only. I'd weave in Ka.s.sin's work to explain why I'd reacted to my interrogation as I had. At the same time, I'd speak directly to Patrick and the Kerchers.

I spent over a month writing drafts. Alone in my cell, I paced, muttering to myself as if I were speaking to the judges and jury.

As I honed my statement, I decided it would be stronger to speak from my heart, without Ka.s.sin's academic language. I'd tell the court about how I had been confused by the police and had lacked the courage to stand up to the authorities when they demanded that I name a murderer.

During the first trial, I believed my innocence would be obvious. It hadn't saved me, and I might never again have the chance to approach Patrick and the Kerchers. This time I was determined to help myself.

Photo Section Part Three