Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found.
Before we get started, I just wanted to say that episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this podcast.
Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Hi everyone, it's Deb.
And I'm Shelby.
And we want to welcome you to our season two premiere of Dying to be Found True Crime Podcast.
You are listening to episode number 53.
And Shelby, oh my gosh, this is going to be a good one today.
You might be old enough to remember this case that we're going to be talking about, but who knows?
I don't know what you were doing at the time.
So I don't really know how much you were paying attention.
We're just going to have to see.
And we'll get to our storyline in just a moment.
But I wanted to tell our listeners how season two is going to go this year.
You know that I love to say D2BF is a family thing, right Shelbs?
I do.
Yep.
So I have already mentioned that your brother Cory is coming on board, but Aunt Beth is also coming back as well.
And this season, you're going to start hearing some themes as we go along.
Since Cory is joining the podcast this season, I thought it would be really cool to talk to him about some rough and tough cases to not only get a man's perspective,
but he's in law enforcement as well.
So I thought it would be really neat to hear from that angle.
What do you think of that?
Oh, I so agree.
I think he's going to have a really good perspective on the storylines.
Now Aunt Beth loves those old time cases, so that's where she comes in.
She'll get to hear much older cases somewhere around the 1800s all the way to the 1970s or so.
So that's kind of her specialty.
That's exciting.
Yeah.
And guess what?
You get the leftovers.
Of course I do.
Are you okay with that?
I'm absolutely okay with that.
Actually Shelbs, you're going to get probably more of a variety here than the other two because between Aunt Beth and your brother Cory, honestly, there is so much more to cover.
So any special requests?
Not right now, but I'm sure I'll think of something.
Okay.
Well, this is a good time to tell our listeners to send in your requests.
Tell us what you want to hear and we will drop our storylines down to cover what you want to hear.
And if you are a true crime podcaster or work in the true crime industry, I would love to personally interview you on my D2BF Dash series that we now have out every Wednesday.
And trust me, the more interviews we have, the less you're going to have to listen to me tell my solo stories.
And to our listeners, go ahead and tell us what you think by giving us a five-star review.
And I don't really ask too much from you, but if you like what you hear, consider buying us a coffee.
All of our links can be found in our show notes, so be sure to check those out.
Now Shelbs, you had told me a couple of weeks ago that you wanted to take a mother-daughter trip overseas with me.
What were you thinking?
I was hoping to do maybe Europe until I saw the ticket prices.
Yeah, they are pretty pricey.
Would you consider going to Italy?
Absolutely.
I know Cory's been there before, so I would definitely go there.
I'm excited because I really think we need to follow through with that.
Absolutely.
We've got to.
Quit talking about it and do it.
But I am going to take you on a trip to Italy.
Oh, I'm excited.
Well, in 2007, so think about how old you were in 2007.
You may know this case 20 year old Amanda Knox was a foreign exchange student at the University of Washington
who was studying abroad in Perugia, Italy, which is somewhere around 365 kilometers or 226 miles from Milan.
And of course, I'm doing all this mathematical stuff, at least looking it up.
I'm not calculating anything.
That's only a three hour drive time from Milan and Amanda's dream was to become an interpreter.
But her studies were interrupted, Shelby, when she was arrested for the murder of her roommate,
21 year old Meredith Kircher from Surrey, England.
Oh, no.
I wanted to take a moment to just give you a little brief background on Meredith.
I wasn't able to find too much on her.
But Shelby, you know, I like to give victims names here.
So I wanted to just kind of mention that Meredith Susanna Kara Kircher was born and raised in South London, UK on December 28th, 1985.
She was the youngest of four children.
And as she grew into a young woman, she chose to study European politics and Italian at the University of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England.
Meredith chose Italy as foreign exchange options because she felt that it would be safer than any other destination that she had researched.
When she began studying abroad in 2007, Meredith chose the University of Perugia,
where she enrolled as a political theory, modern history and history of cinema students.
Only three months after arriving in Perugia, Meredith was discovered sexually assaulted and stabbed to death in the flat where she shared with three other roommates.
On September 20th, 2007, Amanda Knox also arrived in Italy to study abroad at the University of Perugia and moved into the same cottage that Meredith was in.
She was one of the four roommates in total living in the upstairs flat of a two-story cottage.
Another four boys lived below on the ground floor.
Now, Shelby, I was not able to find anything where these two groups mingled amongst each other.
So I don't really know their full relationships if they actually even talk to each other.
Of course, it was early on.
Everybody had just arrived to begin their school year, so they may not have even known their neighbors just yet.
That's true. I'm sure in passing, they at least said hello to each other.
Yeah. On November 1st, 2007, Meredith found herself home alone.
All the boys living downstairs left for a long weekend away and her roommates were off spending the night with either boyfriends or family at the time.
So interesting. They just arrived in Italy and it's kind of cool that they've already found new relationships and stuff.
But at that age, it's not uncommon.
Amanda and her new boyfriend, Raphael, a computer science major whom she had just begun dating a week earlier,
spent the day together the day before Meredith's murder, then returned back to Amanda's flat the next morning.
Ultimately, Shelbs, the couple's whereabouts were accounted for, or at least everything that I found,
their whereabouts were accounted for on the night of Meredith's murder based on computer activity.
According to records later found in Raphael's computer, he and Amanda were at his apartment watching a movie between the hours of 6.26 p.m. and 9.10 p.m.
And this was before Amanda went off to work at 10 p.m.
So really Shelbs, everything that I found, they had an alibi for the night that Meredith was murdered at least from what I could gather.
Wow, that's so crazy.
Yeah, for sure.
Now, the next morning when arriving back at the house that Amanda shared with her roommates,
Amanda and Raphael found the door to the cottage open along with small blood stains in the sink and on the bath mat inside the bathroom.
Oh, you know, I don't know what I would do in that situation.
Of course, you're going to run up on something odd.
Did somebody cut themselves shaving their legs?
You know, just so many different things would be running through my mind.
But after inspecting the apartment, Amanda and Raphael found a broken window in Meredith's bedroom door locked.
That's not good.
No, I suppose that, you know, even if they were just there a couple weeks together,
they probably knew each other's habits or at least were getting to know those, right?
Oh, for sure.
Raphael attempted multiple times on his own to access Meredith's bedroom, but he was not able to open that door.
So Amanda and he ended up calling the police.
Now, Shelbs, just before we recorded, I actually heard a documentary with the emergency call to the police that Raphael had made.
He was really good with giving details on what he and Amanda walked into when they arrived at that cottage on November 2nd, 2007.
Oh, wow.
Are you going to put that in the show notes?
I'm interested to hear.
Yeah, I found it on YouTube and it was a documentary.
And I just listened to the first couple minutes.
But yeah, I'll certainly put that in the show notes because I love to follow up and just watch these documentaries.
You always find missing parts to whatever stories we're talking about.
I do too.
Yeah.
When police arrived, they were able to access Meredith's bedroom where they had discovered her underneath a bedspread.
Unfortunately, Shelby, she was deceased and laying on her bedroom floor after suffering extensive bruising
and being stabbed to death.
Poor thing.
I have goosebumps.
I know.
After assessing Meredith's condition, the medical examiner reported that she had been sexually assaulted.
And Shelby, she received 47 stab wounds.
Oh, this is personal.
What a terrible way to die.
Yeah.
They also reached the conclusion that more than one individual was responsible for Meredith's death due to the lack of defensive wounds.
I didn't know that medical examiners could come to that kind of conclusion.
I thought that would be detective's work.
No, I didn't either.
Yeah.
Well, naturally, Amanda Knox and Raphael immediately became primary suspects in Meredith's death.
After all, Shelby, they were the ones to find Meredith and at least the apartment in disarray.
So, of course, they're going to look at the very first people that walk into the crime scene, regardless of who they are.
Wrong place, wrong time.
Yes, absolutely.
That's a great way to put that for sure.
Yeah.
Meredith's wallet, keys, and cell phones were missing from her possessions.
So, Shelby, could this have been a robbery gone wrong?
I mean, that's very possible.
Bloody fingerprints were found on Meredith's walls and DNA was collected from her clothes and her body.
Of course, whoever did this covered Meredith's body with that bed comforter before leaving the crime scene.
And like you said, it was personal.
There was just too many little things in that room shelves with the fact that nobody does that unless they had a personal interaction or relationship, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, to me, that shows that there was some kind of emotional attachment.
If they're going to cover up the body, had there not been, I mean, they just would have left her as is.
Mm-hmm. Yep. Bloody shoe prints were also found throughout the flat, including inside the kitchen hallway,
Meredith's bedroom, plus on a pillow and under her body.
So, they didn't really do very much to clean things up.
No, they didn't.
I'm curious to know how are they going to examine the footprints?
Is it going to be the size of, I'm sorry, the size of Amanda's or Rafael's?
How are they going to come to the conclusion that they're the suspects?
Yeah, absolutely.
And I did see some pictures.
I mean, it's not really a full-fledged footprint.
You can't see the entire outline of the entire shoe.
It's just very vague.
So, it's hard to explain.
You'd have to go look those pictures up.
Well, during initial police investigations, authorities found Amanda's social media account under the name Foxy Knoxy
and immediately pinned Meredith's murder on Amanda and Rafael.
Wow.
I know, just because of her social media.
And all I can keep going back to Shelby is how old is she?
I mean, she's pretty young.
Yeah, she was 20 years old.
So, she was young, very young.
What are you doing at that age?
You are 100% socializing.
Absolutely.
Yep.
Yeah, and not to mention, I would say that those social media platforms were still relatively new
because even though we really reached the era of technology around the turn of the millennium,
I mean, Shelby, the social medias didn't really come until later.
So, I want to say that social media, Facebook, I don't even know if Instagram was out there.
I don't think so.
Could have been MySpace.
I mean, back in those days, you can decorate the background and add a song when people go to your page.
I mean, right?
Why did that ever go away?
Exactly.
Tom was everybody's friend.
That is so right.
I wonder how Tom's doing these days.
Several statements from the prosecutors said that Amanda and her boyfriend of just one week
were acting very bizarre for several days after Meredith's murder.
Prosecutors tried to create a theory around satanic rituals or possibly a sex encounter gone wrong.
That just sounds crazy.
Well, Shelby too, it's also a different country.
So, yeah, that's true.
I don't follow different countries and what they put in the news, but you know,
I guess we have to kind of keep that in mind.
Investigators also made the observation that the couple was acting rather peculiar,
but not in a good way.
Police said Amanda and Raphael were doing cartwheels at the police station.
Okay, cartwheels.
Who would be doing cartwheels?
That sounds really odd.
It does.
Well, what they were actually doing, Shelby, is they were doing yoga poses.
Understandable, they were under a lot of stress and distress from what they had just witnessed.
So if they know to do yoga, that's supposed to actually really, really be helpful as far as calming your mind.
But I'm pretty sure there's a big difference between cartwheels and yoga.
Oh, there's got to be.
Authorities also stated that Amanda and Raphael went shopping for lingerie while they were under investigation.
And I do remember those reports being on the news shelves.
Do you find that behavior to be odd in any way?
I mean, maybe that was their thing.
They're a couple.
I don't necessarily find it very odd.
I mean, they still have to live their life.
I don't know.
I don't know what I think about that yet, but I don't think it's necessarily ridiculously odd.
Yeah.
And then again, too, is it necessarily ridiculously odd to buy lingerie when you're in your 20s?
I mean, what kind of lingerie do you buy?
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
But let me just tell you, though, Amanda herself did say indeed she did go shopping for underwear.
But this was out of necessity, Shelby.
Think about it.
The police had taped off her house, roped it off with a crime scene.
She was no longer able to go inside her house to get any of her personal belongings.
So she was wearing the clothes on her back.
She had no clean clothes, no clean underwear.
So of course, she had to go buy new ones.
Absolutely.
And as you know, I am not reading ahead, so did not realize she was not able to go home.
So yeah, no, that is not odd at all.
Agreed.
Amanda was even scrutinized for going to court wearing a t-shirt that said, quote,
all you need is love, unquote, which referenced the Beatles.
That happened to be Amanda's favorite band at the time.
And I'm not sure how early into these court appearances that she was dressed like that.
I'm not going to judge because again, a couple things.
How much clothing does a 20-year-old have?
Was she able to access anything from her cottage?
I don't think so.
But also was the Italian counsel, did they tell her what to wear?
She probably had no idea.
She's 20 years old.
I'm sure she's very naive.
And you know, not to say that in a negative light, but you don't know a whole lot at that age.
No, not at all.
So of course, news sources looked for anything to report and took on the point of view that
Amanda was an unsophisticated American who was loud, ignorant to Italian culture and
was a sexual deviant.
And that's what they reported in the news.
However, in actuality, friends would describe Amanda as naive, goofy, and somewhat spirited.
So basically Shelbs, she was a happy-go-lucky girl and was enjoying her life, which I completely
get because I probably was described very similar to that when I was her age.
I don't know of any 20-year-old girl that's not, you know what I mean?
I do.
I mean, she's 20 years old.
She's in Italy.
I mean, that's pretty exciting for her to be so young in another country.
Uh-huh.
Well, investigators continue to tell news outlets that Amanda could not keep her story
straight and gave multiple accounts as to her whereabouts when Meredith was found.
Investigators said that Amanda's disposition was simply too carefree considering that her
roommate had just been murdered.
Remember now, she was traumatized by finding Meredith and then enduring police interrogations
and public scrutiny in a foreign country.
She has a lot stacking up here.
There's no handbook Shelbs for how somebody is going to react to any of these combinations
of trauma.
I think you can agree we all react differently.
Oh yes, I agree.
Well, Amanda endured 10 hours of interrogation without an interpreter that lasted well into
late night hours for five full days in a row.
Shelby, she did not have a lawyer present.
I do have to say that's a mistake on her end.
Yeah.
I don't even know how much Italian she knew at the time or was she, I don't know.
I don't know the laws.
So yeah, I would at least have asked who knows if they, you know, they had to have had some
kind of interpreter that could have helped her out.
So I don't really know how much she could have helped herself here, but I definitely
would have asked.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, again, we're going to kind of chalk that up to her negativity.
Amanda states that she was brutally treated during police questioning and at the time
there were 12 investigators who were relentless on her in their interrogation tactics.
That's a lot of people.
Okay.
So for five days she endured these interrogations.
The investigators got to go home and go to sleep.
So they probably had a pretty decent rotation on who was questioning her.
I mean, their day was probably an eight hour day.
Hers was a 24 seven day.
Wow.
Amanda recalls being hit on the back of the head during questioning.
Those 12 investigators also continued to threaten her with a very long prison sentence and they
let her know that she will never have the luxury of seeing her family ever again.
That's so awful.
It is.
And I know you've seen that show locked up abroad.
I have not actually.
I don't even think I've heard of that.
Really?
Are you serious?
Yeah.
Oh gosh.
You need to go look that one up locked up abroad.
Yeah.
You know, because laws are so different and tactics are so different, but people find
themselves in this situation, Shelby, a lot more than you think.
Wow.
That's very interesting.
I'll have to go.
Is that on Netflix?
I don't know if it still is cause it's an older show and you might find it on YouTube.
You might though.
Who knows?
Just look around for it.
You'll find it.
Okay.
I'm going to look it up.
After everything she had been through in such a short period of time, Amanda felt that looking
back, she simply blocked out a lot of what she had witnessed and was unable to answer
the interrogators questions the way that they wanted her to, especially in a foreign language.
Except she was after five days, Shelbs able to add one small detail and this is probably
the one they were looking for.
Amanda implicated her own boss where she was working to say that he was the one who had
committed the crime when she was in another room.
What?
So she's placing herself there.
She is.
And she's also identifying the person who did this.
Now I know that we've done enough of these episodes and probably listened to enough episodes
to say if you have been interrogated for very long hours, five days straight, you know,
at some point you're going to reach a breaking point.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
So she was probably ready to say anything just to get the heck out of there.
Well, her boss was able to prove a solid alibi, so he was let off the hook rather quickly.
And shortly after Amanda made that statement, she was forced to sign a confession that was
written completely in Italian.
And remember, I don't know how much Italian she knew at this point, how much she had already
studied it.
So I don't even know if she knew what she was signing.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
Inside that confession, it stated that she was at the house at the time of Meredith's
murder, which she had just confessed because she said she was there when her boss was there.
The confession also stated that Amanda was in another room when her boyfriend of just
10 days went into the other room to murder her roommate.
So that's what she signed, Shelbs.
That's so unfortunate.
Well, I think that Amanda kind of came to her senses, she recanted her confession just
a couple hours later.
But by then, you know, the police had what they wanted and it was too late.
Yeah, I mean, she signed it.
Police immediately called a press conference where they announced that Amanda and Raphael
had killed Meredith after a sex game gone wrong.
So they came up with their own story here.
Or did they?
That's what it sounds like.
By now the paparazzi was having a field day with this case and news of Amanda's involvement
was all over the news media.
So that's where I'm going to come back to you, Shelby, and ask you, do you even remember
this case being on the news?
I actually do not.
Okay.
The paparazzi absolutely loved Amanda's Foxy Knoxy label and ran with that headline.
So remember, that's the social media label that she had given herself and they ran with
it.
But I do want to kind of mention here too, that in Italy, Shelby, they don't sequester
juries.
They saw exactly what you and I see in the news.
Plus it's not uncommon for police and lawyers to talk to the press there.
There are not as many restrictions on that.
So again, they are getting everything that is on the news.
Anybody involved with that case, lawyers, judges, juries, everybody sees what you and
I see.
And investigators also found Amanda's journal where they discovered that she had a healthy
dating life with multiple boyfriends.
What do you think of that?
I mean, she's 20.
Yeah, that's what I keep going back to.
She's 20 years old living her life.
That's exactly what I'm going back to.
That's right.
On January 16th, 2009, Amanda and her boyfriend, Raphael, both stood trial for Meredith's death.
They were both found guilty of her murder.
One of the prosecutor's arguments was that only a woman would cover the victim's body
with a sheet.
And remember, that's how I mentioned that Meredith had been found.
Amanda was sentenced to 26 years in an Italian prison and Raphael was sentenced to 25.
They were both ordered to pay over $7 million in restitution to Meredith's family.
That is a ton of money.
And I'm curious, maybe you just didn't bring it up, but you don't have to put this in there.
But I'm curious to know about Raphael's confession.
No, I'm actually glad that you did bring that up because when I was looking up this case,
I knew I would be speaking about Amanda Knox.
And to be honest with you, going back as far as everything being in the news during this
time, Raphael was not brought up very much at all.
And I did not find a ton of articles on him.
Wow.
Yeah, I'm going to just assume for the purpose of this conversation that whatever punishments
that Amanda was given, Raphael was also given the same.
Wow.
And I did see whatever I did see in the articles that I read, there was a lot of similarities
as far as whatever she got, he got.
And that's what I'm going to assume.
And I will tell you this as well.
They did stand trial together.
Wow.
So I'm just going to briefly mention while Amanda was behind bars, she was able to teach
herself Italian by reading Harry Potter books.
Did you actually read those books, Shelbs?
I have never read those books, but I do love the movies.
I've never read the books either.
And I will tell you, I had a German intern living with me several years ago and she was
so into Harry Potter.
And it reminded me too that she had learned English by watching an American Disney show,
I think she had told me.
So it's kind of interesting.
You can actually pick up on different languages just by picking up a book or watching TV shows
in another language because you pick up on body language and things like that.
So yeah, that's cool.
Yeah.
So that reminded me of when I found this that Amanda had taught herself Italian by reading
Harry Potter.
I thought that was kind of neat and resourceful actually.
That is really neat.
I mean, honestly, what else does she have to do?
So true.
Yeah.
Well, people who believed that Amanda was innocent donated airline miles to her family
so that they could travel back and forth to Italy to visit Amanda in prison.
Oh, yeah.
Now I'm going to move on, believe it or not, Shelby, Amanda and Raphael were actually acquitted
years later because on July 25th of 2011, after four years of being behind bars, Amanda
was acquitted for Meredith's murder when an eight member jury could not uphold a guilty
verdict after questions were raised on how DNA was collected from the crime scene.
Plus the fact that local police had swept the crime scene as opposed to murder scene investigators.
Oh, you know, you've got two different departments looking at the crime scene.
Right.
And the judge overseeing this case agreed and ruled in Amanda's favor under a top human
rights law, which also included questions on Amanda's imprisonment and time spent behind
bars.
So by October 3rd, 2011, Amanda was released after over 1428 days behind bars.
That is so long.
It is so long, especially knowing.
I mean, I didn't think she did it from the beginning.
And interestingly enough, I'm glad that they kept this case alive long enough to keep looking
into the facts.
So they didn't really just throw her behind bars and leave her there.
They were still actively looking into this case, which is a good thing, right?
It is.
But if they weren't a hundred percent sure that she did it, you know, I mean, obviously
that shows if they continue to look into it.
Oh yeah, for sure.
Absolutely.
I guess they were just trying to find a quick ending or a quick close the case quickly.
Exactly.
It doesn't sound like they were doing their job correctly.
True.
Well, the ruling addressed several factors of Amanda's arrest, including number one,
Amanda did not receive adequate legal counsel during her initial interrogation because we
both know she didn't have a lawyer with her.
And number two, the DNA found at the scene was used to convict her, but was later found
to be very, very flawed.
Amanda's defense lawyers questioned the mishandling of the murder weapon, which was a knife found
at the scene that held trace DNA from Amanda Knox.
And I don't know if you know what a trace DNA is, Shelby.
It's really something that may just, I mean, if she was, if she had cutlery in the kitchen
that she had been using or, you know, all she had to do was walk by it and she could
have had something fall on there to get some kind of trace DNA.
Well, she lived there.
She did.
Did they not expect to find any of her DNA in the house where she lived?
Exactly.
Because it could have been one of those knives that she was using to cook.
Right.
And the defense also argued that the knife in question was not bagged and tagged correctly.
So there was room for error and contamination here.
And they had a good argument.
Yeah, they sure did.
Do you remember me saying that Raphael attempted to open Meredith's door after entering that
apartment?
Yes, I do.
Well, the defense argued that his DNA could have easily transferred to the crime scene
as well, which further contaminated the bedroom where Meredith was found.
So same circumstances.
You know, you've got one person who does live there, the other person who is there probably
pretty frequently at least in that last 10 days where they had just started dating.
So of course he's going to have something transfer into the scene.
Right.
Yeah, absolutely.
Ultimately, Amanda and Raphael were released after four years behind bars and Amanda at
least was awarded $21,000 in damage related to her arrest.
Italy does not have a double jeopardy law.
You and I have talked about that in the past, but we have that here in the United States.
So even if somebody is released, they can be tried again later.
And in this case, Shelby, Amanda was tried a second time.
Wow.
After she was released and moved back to the United States, Amanda's acquittal was overturned.
She was retried in absentee on March 26th of 2013 and was once again found guilty for
a second time on January 30th, 2014.
So two convictions here.
What?
Yep.
Wow.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
And I didn't really find a ton of information as to why they once again decided to try her.
I didn't see any of that.
But during the second trial, Shelby, Amanda was sentenced to 28 and a half years behind
bars while Raphael received a 25 year sentence.
But I also wanted to kind of throw out there as well.
Amanda got a little bit extra time on her sentence over Raphael.
And do you know why?
I don't.
I was wondering.
Yeah.
Because of the accusation that she had against her boss, where she had pinpointed him as
being on the scene.
Yep.
So she got extra time for that.
Isn't that something?
Right.
I honestly, I wonder what her thought process was for that.
And I also wonder if the four years that she already served counts, like still goes towards
that 28 and a half.
Yeah.
Well, guess what?
This is the happy ending part, to be honest with you.
This part is good news.
Oh, good.
Yeah.
So of course, Amanda was living in fear.
She was back in the States, remember, so she wasn't even present for that second trial.
They had not extradited her.
So she's in the United States, but she's living in fear of extradition.
And that never happened, Shelby, because for a second time, she was acquitted for Meredith's
murder in 2015.
She was acquitted again.
What is going on with Italian law enforcement?
Why are they putting her through this?
I don't know.
That's a good question.
Let's talk about who's really guilty of this crime here.
We don't know for sure, but at the time, 20 year old Rudy Gudei, an Ivory Coast West Africa
native, he was also arrested at the same time for Meredith's murder.
I mean, that part wasn't in the news a whole lot.
They arrested three people here, not just one or two.
Wow.
Gudei was a friend of one of those four men that lived down below the girls.
And he did not hide the fact that he and Meredith had an intimate relationship and had sex with
her on the night her body was found.
I mean, he fessed up to everything.
He said he knew her.
He said he had a relationship with her and all that jazz.
I'm speechless, honestly.
You have someone who, like you said, put themself there, knew her.
Raphael and Amanda had a supposed alibi.
They were at Raphael's house watching a movie.
I don't understand why they were even considered suspects.
I really think it goes back to how they were perceived as far as their behavior.
I don't know.
I mean, psychologically, I mean, were they acting sketchy?
I don't know.
They were young.
They were naive.
They had just met each other.
They're dealing with a lot.
So I have no idea how to answer that.
But I will say that Gudei was a low profile burglar and drug dealer in the area.
And it was his DNA, Shelby, that matched the DNA at the crime scene.
What?
Oh my gosh.
This just gets better and better.
I know, right?
I just want to throw in there.
She deserved a heck of a lot more than $21,000 in restitution or whatever it is you want
to call it.
Absolutely.
And wait till I tell you this next part.
Oh, great.
Gudei was captured on CCTV at 7.51 PM the night that Meredith was murdered.
He was seen breaking into her two story bedroom window, the one that Raphael reported was
broken.
And at 9.01 PM, Meredith had arrived home and settled into her bedroom very soon afterwards
for the night.
It was speculated that as soon as Meredith went to bed, she was attacked.
So he was already in the house waiting for her.
I have a feeling though, he was probably caught in the act.
So he was hiding somewhere because he didn't expect anybody to be home.
Most of the girls were off with family, boyfriends, the boys were out of town.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And he knew the boyfriends were out of town because he was friends with those guys downstairs.
Yeah, absolutely.
I have another question.
Absolutely.
If Gudei was captured on CCTV, wouldn't they be able to see when Amanda left the home and
then what time she returned home?
Oh my gosh.
Absolutely.
See, that's why I love having a co-host.
You come up with things that I don't think about while I'm doing this research.
Yeah.
Why didn't they look at that?
You're so right.
Maybe I should think about switching job professions.
Oh goodness.
Gudei then took Meredith's purse, keys and phone on his way out because remember, he
was a low profile burglar in the area.
And those blood footprints that I had mentioned earlier, the ones that I said was not like
a complete outline, but you could see that it was a shoe.
Guess what?
They matched Gudei's running shoes.
Of course they did.
Goodness.
And the bloody handprint that was found at the crime scene was also linked to Rudy Gudei
plus blood was found in the four boys flat below where investigators believe that he
had broken into their apartment to get a change of clothes before heading off to a nightclub
later that night.
Wow.
I'm assuming Shelby, I don't even know.
I didn't link this while I was doing the research.
He could have been arrested a little while later, but I still don't know why Amanda and
Raphael would have gone through everything they went through when they caught him.
I don't specifically know.
If somebody wants to email me and yell at me for not looking that up to see exactly
when he was arrested for this, I know he was obviously arrested, but the timeline, I can't
really say for sure.
I was just wondering if any of the boys had reported to the police a break in.
Yeah, that's a good question.
Really I didn't see anything about the boys.
I don't even know who they were, where they came from, anything like that.
So there was very little mention of them.
And I don't know if Gudei was a little bit more skilled at entering their apartment versus
Meredith's.
But I will say that his version of the story here is that he stated he was with Meredith
participating in consensual sex.
Afterwards, he went to use the bathroom, but when he returned, he found Meredith dead.
What?
Exactly.
He also became a little indignant and said that the only thing he was guilty of here
was not calling the police when he found her.
I mean, if he just went to the bathroom and somebody was being stabbed in the other room,
wouldn't you think they would have heard screaming?
I would think so because it was 47 times.
Absolutely.
Just my thought or here's some kind of struggle or window break.
Yeah, that's just...
Yeah, but remember too, there was not a ton of defensive wounds on her.
I mean, for all I know, she could have been asleep when he attacked.
Who knows?
I don't know.
Poor thing.
Mm-hmm.
Rudy Gude was originally sentenced to 30 years behind bars, but it was later reduced to 16.
Gude served 15 of these years in prison for Meredith's murder and entered into a work
release program in 2017 where he performed community service and went off to work in,
get this Shelby, a criminology library.
Wow.
And he has always maintained his innocence in Meredith's death.
Even though Gude was sentenced for his crime, Amanda and her boyfriend were also charged
in Meredith's death.
Again, I don't know the specific timeline as far as when Gude was arrested versus Amanda
and Rafael, but it wasn't until 2015 that Amanda was completely exonerated by Italy's
highest court for Meredith's murder.
It wasn't until just 2015, Shelby, that Amanda was completely exonerated by Italy's highest
court for Meredith Kertcher's murder.
So she went eight years with this hanging over her head.
I know that had to have been difficult.
For sure.
I couldn't imagine.
Well, today, Amanda is an advocate for the wrongly convicted.
She's written a book about her ordeal and another one advocating for people who are
serving time in prison for crimes that they did not commit.
So we always hear those stories of innocent people behind bars.
Yeah.
Amanda also attended several conferences as a speaker, including one in Italy that was
organized by the Italian Innocence Project, which didn't exist when Amanda was first arrested
in 2007.
Amanda currently writes articles in various print magazines.
She did end up finishing her degree in creative writing as opposed to her original plan to
be an interpreter because Shelby, she has not been able to find regular work due to
how much publicity she has faced through the years.
Obviously in this very highly publicized case, she's kind of had to detour her whole life
because of it.
And I thought this little tidbit was fascinating.
I could not believe this when I found it.
Amanda also hosts a true crime podcast.
How cool is that?
Oh, that's cool.
Yeah.
It's called the truth about true crime.
The last episode Shelby that I saw dropped is in September of 2022.
So I'm not even sure if she's still podcasting this series.
It doesn't look like these episodes drop every week like ours do.
So I mean, there might be some coming out.
I'm not really sure.
I'm just going to have to keep gauging it.
I did put this in my library because I'm interested in listening to it.
Yeah, that's really cool.
I'll have to listen to.
As of 2020, Amanda married, now has a baby and is an outdoor enthusiast who hunts mushrooms
in the forest.
She also has a mat at her front door that reads, come back with a warrant.
Oh, that's awesome.
Uh huh.
So that's the story of Amanda Knox and her ordeal with the accusations of Meredith Kertcher's
murder.
We would love to receive feedback from our listeners on this storyline or any of our
episodes.
So what do you think Shelbs?
I think that was a really, really good one.
I personally don't remember this.
For sure was not paying attention to the news, but I am so glad that she can live as a free
woman.
She definitely didn't deserve those several horrifying years of her life.
Good for her.
I'm glad.
Yeah.
So I knew that this one had to be our season premiere, but I mean, I knew I was going to
do this one eventually, but I thought it was definitely worthy.
Well, thank you.
I do appreciate you sharing it with me.
Do you have a teachable moment for us today?
Yes, I do.
If you ever find a door, a jar, leave immediately.
I know you've heard this before, Shelby.
And this is something I was told a long, long time ago.
If you could ever come home and just find your door, a jar, never, and I mean never
enter, you immediately call the police and let them come in and do the work for you.
Shelby, I don't know if you remember this.
I did come home one time from work and I did find our front door, a jar.
Did I ever tell you that?
No, I don't think you have, but I remember that happening one time as well.
It was later in the evening.
I want to say maybe one of us had some kind of practice and I remember us coming home
and the front door was slightly open.
Did you go in?
No, the three of us, me, you, and Cory had come home and you ended up calling the police
to have them come check.
Oh yeah, that was the time then.
So yeah.
Okay.
So you were with me.
Yeah.
I'm glad that we could talk this one through together.
So yeah, we came home.
I thought I was coming home from work.
I guess the three of us had the same reaction then because I know I was scared to enter
the house.
I do not believe we entered the house, did we?
No.
Yeah, exactly.
So it didn't feel right to me.
I do remember calling 911.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
So it didn't feel right to me.
They went in, they checked things out.
Everything was okay, but I would rather put a call in like that than to have something
happen later, especially with you guys.
You know, I had to kind of watch out for you.
Yep.
But it's always better to err on that side of caution as opposed to, like I said, something
else happening.
And Shelby, I think looking back on that incident, I just wonder if maybe as we were leaving
the house, one of us did not close that door all the way.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
So yeah, my gut told me not to go inside and that's when I called the police.
So I don't care if it's a false alarm.
Police don't care if it's a false alarm.
What I did with my gut that day, it told me to stay outside and the police would definitely
back me up to say, do not ever enter your residence if you come upon a door that should
not be in that way.
So that's my teachable moment.
I agree.
I think you did the right thing.
All right.
Well, with that being said, that is the case of Amanda Knox and let us know what you think.
Be sure to DM us on Instagram or send us an email at dying to be found at gmail.com and
we'll talk to you next week.
See you then.
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