hinckley replied maybe if i had to wait a while to buy a gun, fill out forms or get a permit or sign in with police or anything complicated, i probably anything complicated, i probably wouldn't have done it. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

she was young. she was beautiful. and she was in big trouble. >> the 20-year-old from seattle sits in this italian jail, a prime suspect in the mysterious death of her roommate. this was the ugly american on steroids.

>> is amanda knox a whore or a saint? >> i was sexually active. i was not sexually beaten. >> was she guilty in fact or just in the press? >> the newspapers had this fabulous story if this story was true. >> they had a fabulous story depending on if what the prosecution said was true. >> it was a media spectacle that consumed the united states, italy and england, igniting controversy that still rages. >> there's something about the way her eyes moved that leaves us wondering. >> i wished so much that i had stood up to them. >> the prosecution of amanda knox, next.

perugia, italy is a storybook city, famous throughout the world for its chocolates. and equally famous to students as a party town, where getting high and hooking up is a prerequisite. for the college experience. >> to the average american tourist, this town looks like an idyllic italian mountain town filled with beautiful art and churches. if you spent a little time there and you read italian, you start to realize every single headline is about drugs, it's about gang violence. >> everything looks so calm and tranquil on the surface. this is a lovely little hill town in italy and terrible evil had committed. this is something the tabloids could feast on. >> amanda knox never thought she would be fodder for tabloids. when she arrived in perugia in 2007 as a 20-year-old exchange student, it seemed like a dream come true.

>> she was from university of washington, good with languages and she decided she was going to take her junior year abroad. she enrolled at perugia school for foreigners, a school that historically teaches italian to foreigners. she became the third of four roommates living together in this little house. >> two of the roommates were italian. amanda described one as offbeat and the other as a bit of a hippie. the third housemate was 21-year-old meredith kercher, a british exchange student. amanda found her exotically beautiful and friendly. next to amanda, however, all three seemed almost reserved. >> amanda is from seattle. she was considered eccentric in seattle, which prides itself on its eccentricities. >> the way you comport and portray yourself to others around italians is extremely important.

she had this extreme version of being carefree and careless and actually took pride in it. in italy it's not done, especially not young women. >> as the newest and youngest of the roommates, amanda and meredith found much in common. they also shared a bathroom at one end of the house. they would only know each other for six weeks. >> it's just so sad. she had, by all accounts, a wonderful person, very smart, talented and well liked, regarded and loved girl. >> meredith kercher was more formal. she was british. she was more sophisticated. she was there with a pack of friends, who she knew from the university of leeds. so she was in a much more secure place. amanda was more like a lone wolf, running around, basically picking up guys. >> amanda's free spirit and fresh-faced beauty even helped

her get a part-time job. >> she was recruited to waitress at a bar owned by an african immigrant to italy named patrick lumumba. he hired her because she was american and pretty and he hoped she would attract more male patrons. >> the first big holiday of the season was november 1st, all saints day. in italy it's a sacred time, when families honor their ancestors. but for foreign students like amanda knox and meredith kercher it's a traditional party time, not unlike halloween. amanda and meredith had the cottage to themselves. their italian roommates were gone for it the night. amanda had just started dating raffaele sollecito. a young student whom she had met a week earlier. >> he was in love but how many people fall in love at 23 and think it's forever. >> they met at a classical music

concert. but those things weren't reported. it was more that she was this wanton sex-crazed vixen. >> for one week they spent every night together. it was a romantic whirlwind, until the morning of november 2, 2007. after another evening with raffaele, amanda returned to the house early in the morning. she said she had no idea that meredith kercher was dead in her bedroom. her throat had been slashed and she'd been sexually assaulted. >> amanda knox came home the day after the murder to take a shower. she took the same shower every single time she stayed at raffaele's because he had this crummy guy type of moldy shower. so she came home to shower and change her clothes. she came in and saw weird things in different parts of the house, but being amanda knox, being a bit eccentric, she still took a shower. >> she noticed there were blood drops on the sink faucet.

when she got out of the shower, a blood can spot on the blue bath mat. she thought maybe meredith was having her period and had dripped blood or the blood on the sink had dripped from her ear. amanda knox had gotten 11 ear piercings that week. >> she went into the other bathroom. not the bathroom she uses all the time, but the other bathroom to get a hair dryer and blow dry her hair. >> at this point amanda's story takes an odd turn. >> she found feces in the toilet which grossed her out because a nice, clean house. those particular roommates that used that toilet were the cleanest in the house. she couldn't figure out, why didn't they flush the toilet? thought it was weird and creepy and she did not flush it. >> she went back to raffaele's house for breakfast. people find that hard to understand. the explanation is that she was young and innocent and a little bit naive. in her words she was stupid about it but stupidity is not a criminal offense.

>> amanda tries calling meredith several times before he they return to the house. in another odd twist the police arrive a short time later. they're investigating the theft of two cell phones registered to amanda's roommates. >> first thing they do is go inside and notice meredith's door is locked. she doesn't answer the door. they open the door of one of the other roommates. the room is in disarray. broken glass everywhere, clothes strewn around, drawers pulled open and clearly someone has been in their house. and then everybody starts to become concerned. meredith's door is locked. >> no one is prepared for what they find in meredith's room. the scene is a bloodbath. >> she was lying on the floor covered by a duvet and her foot was sticking out and there was blood everywhere, on the wall, on the closet, everywhere. >> the house was sealed off.

amanda and raffaele remained outside. their behavior quickly drew the attention of the police. >> so, the body of meredith kercher had just been discovered in the cottage and they were outside comforting each other and the cameras started rolling. they were not aware of that. so, they kissed like little pecks three times. >> as police gathered information, a lead investigator was brought onto the case. giuliano mignini. >> what people don't understand is that a prosecutor is both investigator and prosecutor. he is controlling what the police look at. >> he was known as tough, no nonsense prosecutor. >> he is a staunch catholic. he believes that in his town there are people who are practicing these dark ritual acts. the fact it happened on all souls night was part of the clue

to him that this was a ritual act. >> we used to say every day was halloween to him. every day was satanic and witchcraft and every day had these ritualistic overtones. that's what the overtone was from the police. >> they were not buying amanda's story. it was hazy at best. was there opportunity? yes. but was there motive? >> giuliano is the kind of person who can come to a crime scene and see a beautiful english girl laying dead in a pool of blood and fantasize a four-way orgy. >> to him, the primary questions were obvious. did meredith die at the hands of amanda knox and her boyfriend? and how? as it turned out, the answers almost didn't matter. >> there's always been this idea that there's just something more going on. people couldn't quite put their finger on it. and amanda was the best scapegoat, if you will.

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investigators have been picking -- >> for the press in both america and italy, it wasn't just the story of the year. it was the story of the century. >> the amanda knox case had something for everybody. sex, drugs, international intrigue. if you're the prosecutor, it even had satanism. >> the italian press crafted a picture of this girl, this

american girl, that was she's a sex maniac, she's a spoiled, rich american, and isn't she pretty? >> she had this uncanny ability to look straight into the camera no matter who was taking the picture, and look piercingly and the images were chilling. >> i would much rather suppress my emotion than have it be determined as insincere and affected. >> a broken back window. an unlocked front door. a mutilated corpse. british exchange student meredith kercher had been savagely killed after a sexual assault in her own bedroom. the murder resonated throughout perugia. >> as the days progressed and this crime became known to the community, students were fleeing in fear. my god, there's a homicidal maniac in our town. >> just outside the crime scene,

meredith's roommate, amanda knox, and her boyfriend of one week raffaele sollecito, were acting as if nothing had happened. the police began to suspect they were involved in the murder thanks, in part, to the now infamous kiss. >> this kiss was caught on camera and then they were accused of behaving inappropriately in the context of murder investigation. >> with her house now a crime scene, amanda moved in with raffaele. police kept close tabs on both of them. meanwhile, prosecutor guilianio mignini developed a theory. raffaele was naive and willing to please, caught under the spell of a racy american temptress, a woman who may well have been part of a secret satanic cult. investigators began interviewing potential witnesses. >> they asked everybody from that house to come to the police station to be questioned. all of the italians who lived in the house showed up with adult advisers -- parents, professors

or lawyers. >> in the italian justice system, just like the american justice system, any time the police want to see you, it's smart to lawyer up. >> raffaele sollecito didn't think he had anything to lose. all he did was help out amanda when she was upset and asked him to come back to the house and see what was going on at her house. >> like raffaele, amanda arrived without counsel. she may have been eccentric, but mignini considered her narcissistic and a she-devil. amanda even seemed to preen in front of the police with a few suggestive yoga stretches. >> there were moments, for example, in the police station when they were waiting around. amanda infamously, as was also reported by the media, did the splits. she may have done other yoga moves. raffaele saw amanda do things that he found odd. for example, she curled up on him like a koala bear. somehow deep down he felt uncomfortable. >> for raffaele things got worse during his questioning.

>> the way raffaele got himself into the most trouble was to underestimate the seriousness of a murder investigation, not to understand that he had to be absolutely crystal clear about what he had done and seen and where he had been. he couldn't remember what happened each evening. he was eating dinner, smoking pot and seeing amanda, and he couldn't remember which night was which, so when the police asked him, he had tremendous difficulty remembering, did she go to work that night, did she not go to work that night? they took that statement, got him to sign it in writing, and then they took it back to amanda and said your boyfriend has testified against you and said you went out. >> amanda's command of italian was poor, but under questioning the police got her to recant her original story. and say she had not been with raffaele all night. >> this interrogation went on all night long. and she wasn't given food or water. she wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom. >> she was told that, you know, imagine if you had been there, what would you have heard or seen? and she said, here's that famous statement, i'd cover my ears.

i heard a scream, i covered my ears. >> she said she answered hypothetically, but it was taken as gospel. >> the police told me that i knew who the murderer was. they told me that i had to know, that i wasn't telling them the truth, that i had amnesia and that i had to remember. >> incredibly amanda now told police that she was in the house when the murder occurred. then a new suspect was implicated. amanda's boss at the nightclub, patrick lumumba. >> they told amanda knox that they had absolute proof that she had been at the crime scene and that she had left the apartment and that she had met patrick lumumba. >> they have her cell phone and they see she texted patrick lumumba, her boss. and said, i'll see you later. they read that as an actual appointment with him. and that was her last text before the phones went off on the night of the murder.

>> amanda knox did actually say she was there, but she said she was in the kitchen and that she heard patrick murdering meredith. she heard meredith scream. but her statement is so confused and so bizarre, that she said, i remember confusedly that he did all that. what she had said is the police asked her to imagine various scenarios and that was one of them. >> they basically brow-beat the confession out of her. the confession is a signed statement they wrote for her which she signed which says, i see myself in the house with lumumba and he's in the other room and meredith, i can hear her start to scream. >> though amanda never directly admitted to the murder, the police were quick to report they had their killers, amanda knox, raffaele sollecito and patrick lumumba. with knox and sollecito already in custody, they race out to arrest lumumba.

>> they drag him out of his house and throw him in prison. he says, no, i wasn't there. i was in my bar, and there is somebody that can tell you they were there with me. they found his alibi, and it was a professor of french that said, yeah, i was in the bar with him that night. he wasn't killing anyone at 9:00. he was in his bar serving me a drink. they still didn't let him out, though. >> as the prosecutor built his case, the press had a field day and dug up everything they could about the accused. >> the british tabloids from the beginning were -- i felt by far the worst because they just printed whatever the prosecutor said, and he was saying all of these terrible derogatory things about amanda knox and portraying her as just pure evil. as this terrible human being who had this beautiful trusted roommate and had encouraged these men to help her kill her roommate. >> i was sexually active. i was not sexually deviant, and because i was sexually active, that turned in for them to

sexually deviant. >> giuliano mignini had his three killers behind bars. he would now use the press to help prove his case. >> the press in italy doesn't have any boundaries. that's where the word paparazzi comes from.

the amanda knox case was a media juggernaut, and once this case got going, it had a life of its own. >> we all first heard about the case when we turned on our televisions. >> my head is all confused. the incident has left me very confused. >> there was an american college student in italy being paraded on a perp walk. and that was absolutely a shocking image that went viral. >> if she was an ugly girl, would we have a different feeling about her? >> let's not overlook that the real victim in the case is meredith kercher and her family that continues to grieve. >> we need to find out what happened. >> for the tabloids, however, meredith kercher wasn't the vee. this was all about amanda knox. >> in the amanda knox case the media played an enormous role.

this was a case that was front and center in all of the italian media. and they looked at her as this sex demon. you know, here she was, an american on their soil. committing heinous crimes. >> but some were beginning to question the facts. at least as presented by the italian prosecutor. >> in italy you can't just go to the court building and say, may i have all the court records that have to do with this trial? the way it's done there is all the lawyers who are involved, and sometimes the police, hand to their favored reporters what they want them to have. >> with amanda in deep legal trouble, her mother arrived in italy, eager to change public opinion about her daughter. >> i mean, as an innocent person it's really hard for her. >> but there's no evidence of raffaele or amanda that connects them to that crime. >> she told me what happened to her in the interrogation. you know, she told me, you know, i never confessed to anything.

they asked me to imagine possibilities and, you know, i've now learned that that's a tactic that they use. >> the only thing they were fixating on is i must have met patrick, so i set up patrick. then they set up this entire scenario about having met patrick, having heard meredith scream and i signed it just to make it stop. >> they said, who do you know that's black? she said patrick. she didn't say like, he did it. he's the one. you know, arrest that guy. he's the murderer. >> with fingerprint result came in, the case took a new turn. there was an african man at the scene of the crime, but it wasn't patrick lumumba. >> if you're annism grant, you have that to check in once a year with the police, i believe. you are considered a guest. and the fingerprints are known to them. they happen to be on file in the police station.

they belong to a man named rudy guede, an african immigrant's son. >> rudy guede was a drifter, originally from the ivory coast. he partied on the periphery of student life and was suspected of recent crimes around perugia. >> rudy had a history of knives and violence and break-in. >> he had blood, traces all over the crime scene, left his feces in the toilet. although that degrades dna very rapidly, there was dna out there as well. >> his blood and fingerprints are on her purse. and there are bloody hand prints and blood down the walls of her bedroom. he may have been surprised -- i don't know why he left. he didn't complete the act of rape. she had a tampon in at the time. maybe that's why. >> guede left for germany. he admitted to a friend he had been with meredith that night but claimed he didn't kill her. his connection with amanda, raffaele and meredith was thin at best. >> there's a question about whether amanda and meredith knew

him. amanda said i had seen him, but i didn't know his name. >> never met rudy guede. never set eyes on him. didn't know anything about him. >> within days guede was picked up by police in germany. >> the initial assumption when rudy guede was extradited back to italy, it was always going to be over. everything pointed to him. he even had a motive. >> he had stated in a conversation to the police that, yes, i was there. yeah, i know who amanda is and, no, she wasn't there, and, no, i have never met her boyfriend before. we're all sitting there going, hallelujah. >> they basically just throw lumumba back out on the street. sorry, we got the wrong black guy. >> patrick lumumba was released from custody but the damage was done. his reputation was trashed because of amanda's accusations. >> i would take back my interrogation. when i think back on it, god, especially right afterwards, right after all of that happened, i wished, i wished so

much that i had stood up to them. >> prosecutor mignini, however, wasn't changing his position. to him amanda had simply confessed about the wrong man. he still believed the murder stemmed from a sex orgy gone wrong with amanda at its center. >> investigators were interested to know how sexually active she was because they felt like that fit into the theory of their case. >> they took her downstairs and had a doctor take a blood test in the jail and then they called her back and said, we're so sorry, you have hiv. so she writes down every guy she's ever had sex with, and there's seven guys. and then two weeks later they say, oops, sorry, we made a mistake. you're not hiv positive. meanwhile, they have taken this document where she's listed out these guys that she's had sex with, and they've handed that to the press. >> to take that false information of such a deeply personal nature, something that is so intimate and then leak that out to the media to add to the sensationalism of this case,

it's just unimaginable. >> we have to try to do our best to put on a face that it is going to work out. >> and we keep telling her that it's taking way longer than we ever expected, but she will get out of there. >> i looked at all the evidence in the case, including the crime scene defends, her quote unquote confession, bank records, phone bills, dna. i had all of it. went through all of it and was convinced she was innocent. >> with the evidence pointing at rudy guede as the lone killer, would the prosecution actually put amanda knox on trial for a murder she didn't commit? >> if the amanda knox case were to have been tried in america, it would have been the rudy guede case, period.

dna is very powerful evidence, but if it's mishandled, if that evidence is compromised, it's garbage in, garbage out. >> their investigative technique was really just appalling. if you ever get into the system, it's hard to get out. >> i was not strapping on leather and bearing a whip. >> 14 months have passed since

meredith kercher was murdered. amanda knox and raffaele sollecito have spent the entire time waiting in jail for their day in court. for amanda the ordeal is compounded by the peculiarities of the legal system. >> italian juries work differently than ours. the judge is a member of the jury. the judge actually leads the jury in it's its decision-making. >> in italy they take their time, and the case may start at one point and then adjourn for a couple of weeks. you'll have another day of testimony. a longer adjournment. so this keeps people on pins and needles for a lot longer. >> before trying amanda and raffaele, the italian court will prosecute the third suspect in the case, rudy guede, who has requested a separate fast-track trial.

>> with rudy guede they had strong evidence. they had his dna not only on her body, but actually inside of her. so this was a slam dunk case against rudy guede, and if this case were brought to justice in america, it's my suspicion that we would never be hearing about amanda or raffaele. the investigation would have begun and ended with rudy guede. >> but there may have been other reasons for granting rudy guede a quick trial. >> the prosecutor was convinced that this wasn't just rudy. that once rudy was found guilty, rude would come and cooperate, especially if he was offered certain reductions in his sentence. >> in the end, rudy guede's trial was simply a warm-up. the real show was the prosecution of amanda knox. >> she was voted over the first lady of france as the most popular in the press. in europe.

think about it. amanda knox, you know, over carla bruni. >> i think it's so unfair to look at everything amanda does in court and write it down, but you see people actually doing that. >> when i didn't cry, it was bad. when i smiled, it was bad. when i didn't smile, it was bad. it -- i have been paralyzed by this kind of scrutiny. and i feel like it's unfair. >> amanda knox's defenders say she was constantly misrepresented. even her online social media nickname, foxy knoxy, was held up as alleged proof of her wicked ways. >> in court they talked about that all the time. like, why are you foxy knoxy? what does that really mean? >> it was a name her teammates gave her when she played middle school soccer. >> it was her nickname. it was innocent. nobody called her that when she was in seattle. no one called her that when she was in italy. no one called her that post age 14. >> at the same time, the media ignored raffaele. >> raffaele was amanda's boyfriend, alleged to have been

part of it. nobody focused on him. >> the trial was a long, slow process and the media constantly milked the emotions of the public. >> prosecutor who told terrible stories would get up and say, amanda did this, amanda did that and they would write it down as though it happened in front of their eyes. >> the italian justice system and the italian media system is like a two-headed monster and both of them need to get fed. >> even with all its advantages, the prosecution's case lacked hard, physical evidence against amanda and raffaele. >> they keep trying to find evidence placing amanda knox and in the actual room where the murder was committed and they were never able to do that. >> there's only two pieces of evidence that supposedly connected her to the crime, and neither one connected her. >> the first was a kitchen knife

found in raffaele's apartment. >> in the case of the knife, the media mantra on this, the thing they kept repeating all over it was that it had meredith's dna only the blade and amanda's on the handle. it did not have meredith's dna. if a spoon was taken from your kitchen drawer and tested by the same techniques, the spoon would be shown to have meredith kercher's dna on it. it was pseudoscience. >> the second piece of evidence was meredith's bra clasp, found at the crime scene, allegedly with raffaele's dna. >> they came back and brought it back. >> they didn't collect it for like six weeks. they kept kicking it around the room and then picking it up with the same gloves and putting it down. >> the defense tried to challenge the dna tests done on the knife and the bra clip, but the prosecution argued that all testing had been done correctly. the judge agreed and disallowed additional testing.

>> they refused to have independent experts look at any of the scientific experts. so all you could go by is what the police wanted to show you. >> what ended up being prosecutor mignini's contention is that somehow amanda ordered the murder from the next room, because that was the only way you could explain how she was involved, but there was none of her dna at the scene. it was a remark that didn't even pass the giggle test, but that's what the prosecutor was reduced to. >> without real evidence, the prosecution had built a case on amanda's presumed bad character. but was merely looking guilty enough to send amanda knox to prison for life. >> for all of their theories about my personality and my behavior, there is nothing that links me to this murder. i am not present at the crime scene. i'm just not.

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the more you know about amanda knox and raffaele sollecito, the less likely you are to believe that they were guilty. >> if you met raffaele sollecito you'd realize the idea of him harming a fly is absolutely absurd. >> the idea that i could have participated in a murder and yet be not present at the crime scene is ludicrous. >> the trial of amanda knox and raffaele sollecito lasted almost 12 months. finally on december 4, 2009, just over two years after the murder of meredith kercher, a verdict is reached. >> breaking news from italy. amanda knox found guilty of murder. the verdict for the 22-year-old american handed down earlier this evening. we're told she was sobbing while the decision was being announced. >> you could really hear a pin drop in that room.

the judge dispassionately saying both were guilty, giving amanda knox 26 years. her former lover, 25 years for the brutal murder of meredith kercher. >> when the verdict came down, there were parties in the street. ♪ i mean, people seemed to be overjoyed with the fact of her conviction. >> as an american living in the 21st century, being present at the conviction, which was announced at midnight on a foggy night with a crowd of townspeople shouting assassina americana was the closest thing i will ever come to i think in my life witnessing an actual pagan scapegoating ritual. >> the prosecution and meredith kercher's family felt justice had been served. >> the kercher family is convinced that she killed their

daughter, and they are behind the italian prosecutor 100%. >> but there were others who were outraged by the manipulation of evidence and the verdict. >> in any legitimate court of law that was looking at this dna evidence in the united states, in the u.k., in france, in any of these countries, this dna evidence would be absolutely thrown out. >> there's not a hair of amanda knox in there. there's not a fiber of amanda knox. there's not blood of amanda knox. there's not footprints of amanda knox. there's nothing. >> no one questioned rudy guede's guilt. yet, two and a half weeks after amanda's trial ended, guede's sentence was reduced from 30 years to 16, leading some to ask, did he cut a deal? >> there's overwhelming dna evidence along with lots of other physical evidence that points to rudy guede. >> amanda's attorneys appealed the verdict and focused on challenging the dna evidence. >> when the appeals process

began, it felt like they had another mountain to climb that right away you could tell that there was a very different tone, and, again, the key decision was whether or not they would allow an independent assessment of the forensic evidence. >> november 24th, 2010. 11 months after the guilty verdict, a second trial is granted. >> the defense presented a very compelling case, identifying rudy guede as the true killer, based on hard facts and motive. >> rudy guede came to the house. he broke in. he was in the bathroom. he left his own dna in the bathroom. meredith may have come home and surprised him. maybe he was lying in wait. i hate to say it, but it's kind of the garden variety one guy kills -- tries to rape and rob girl case. >> in contrast to rudy guede's incriminating dna, amanda's defense team also set out to prove that the dna found on the

knife, allegedly meredith's, did not implicate amanda or raffaele. >> they actually had independent experts come in, and they were absolutely appalled by the way the dna was collected and tested. >> those independent experts said the evidence is contaminated. it's not admissible. it's compromised. >> what they thought was meredith's dna was not dna at all. it was nothing. it didn't match her in any way, shape, or form. >> the prosecutor trying to rebut that suggests somehow amanda went back and cleaned up the dna. it's a ridiculous notion. it's crazy. >> somehow they can have this special vision that allows them to see dna. so amanda can raffaele were able to go in, all night long they worked, and cleaned up only their dna and left rudy's dna all over the place. >> amanda and raffaele tried to remain hopeful about the second trial, but public opinion was still against them.

they had already spent years behind bars. >> there were times when i thought i was going crazy in prison and i was literally just talking to my younger self when i was alone. i would be alone in my cell, thinking about the past and thinking about all of my regrets. wow, this hotel is amazing. oh no. who are you? who are you? wrong answer. wait, daddy, this is blair, he booked this room with priceline express deals and saved a ton. yeah, i didn't have to bid i got everything i wanted. oh good i always do. oh good he seemed nice. express deals. priceline savings without the bidding.

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cool. ...or a few weeks young. ♪ [ laughs ] away beckons from orion's belt. away...is a place that's closer than you think. find your away. for a dealer and the rv that's right for you, visit gorving.com. pubically this case is considered to be the amanda knox case, but really it's the meredith kercher murder case. sadly, i think a lot of that has been lost in the way it's been covered in the media. >> millions of italians believe this young woman is a murderess, millions. >> i don't think amanda is guilty of felony murder, but i think amanda is guilty of being felony stupid. the second trial of amanda knox and raffaele sollecito took 11

months to complete. even when delivered in italian, the verdict was clear. [ speaking italian ] >> amanda knox was free. >> amanda is free and sollecito, raffaele, too. >> in the fall of 2011, after these kids had been in prison for four years, a perugia appeals court threw the case out, overturned it, and they walked and they went home. ♪ >> while it became a time of celebration for amanda knox, raffaele sollecito and their families, the tragedy of meredith kercher cannot be forgotten.

>> the kercher family has paid the ultimate price. i wish that they would not always go by what the prosecutor says. because the prosecutor is absolutely obsessed with this one person, and actually they could have had some closure long ago if he had just pursued the most logical trail. >> i don't think the prosecution has admitted that through the objectivity of their evidence they can conclude who participated and/or not. and the fact that it has been put out there for so long that i may or may not have had something to do with the murder, they can't let go of. they just -- they -- the idea that someone knows what happened or was a part of what happened and isn't saying anything and isn't being held responsible is maddening. i understand that. but it's not -- i'm not

responsible for what happened. i didn't do it. i wasn't there. i don't know anything more about it. >> this is a case where there's dna evidence that shows that the murderer is in prison but yet there's this feeling that somehow justice hasn't been served. >> when i talk to people they don't understand that somebody else has already been convicted of this crime. not only that, but that all the evidence in the murder room points to rudy. >> just after her acquittal, amanda flew back to the u.s. she knew she had to face the press. but it was nothing like italy. >> when amanda came home, there was a huge crowd. >> my family's the most important thing to me right now and i just want to go and be with them. so, thank you for being there for me. >> all the tv stations, all the radio stations, all the print media, seattle times, everybody,

they wrote a lot -- they sent a letter, which i think is unprecedented, together saying we will honor amanda knox's request to leave her alone. >> raffaele sollecito tried to move on with his life as well. >> i think raffaele feels very embittered about the justice system and continues to feel embittered because of the length of time. his great virtue he understood amanda was innocent and he wasn't going to roll over and testify against her no matter what it cost him. >> after amanda knox and raphael sollecito were released, raffaele came to the united states and spent a few days with her. their relationship was over. they're obviously bound together by this bizarre experience that they've had, but they are not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. >> some five months after returning home, amanda knox signed a book deal worth a reported $4 million.

but her nightmare was not over. on march 26th, 2013, two months before amanda's memoir was published, she and raffaele received distressing news. >> "crime and punishment" tonight, will amanda knox face retrial for murder in italy? >> the italian supreme court was considering a third trial. unlike in america, the prosecution can reverse an appeal verdict and giuliano mignini is not a man to lose the case of his career. >> we call this the mignini express. it's like this vortex you get into and you can't get out. the biggest moral of the story is she should have lawyered up, but before that she should have got on the plane. she stayed in italy voluntarily. if she had just flown home, none of this would have happened. >> whether or not amanda knox returns to italy to face her accusers, the italian justice

system can grind on for decades and amanda may never be able to say she is truly free. >> i'm afraid to go back there. i don't want to go back into prison. there are only so many times that i can say, no, i didn't do that i can say, no, i didn't do it. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com