In what may be one of the most controversial international cases to date, Amanda Knox was cleared of murder today, October 3, 2011, nearly four years after being accused of killing her roommate, Meredith Krecher. Amanda and her boyfriend, Raffael Sollecito, were let out of italian prison after being tortured, abused and taken advantage of for four years. On November 2, 2007, Meredith Krecher was found brutally murdered covered with a duvet soaked in blood. Controversy began immediately following the site of Meredith's body. There was much question and confusion about where Meredith's roommates had been and why it was that Meredith was alone. Italian police abused and interrogated Amanda Knox, one of Meredith's roommate about what happened that night and where Amanda and her boyfriend, Raffael, had been at the time of the murder. Knox later said that the reasoning behind her confessions was due to "stress, shock, exhaustion and the fact that she was repeatedly beaten on the head when she had trouble remembering specific facts." After being questioned for "14 hours" primarily in italian, Knox was arrested by italian officers and taken to prison. It was reported that two weeks after the murder, Rudy Guede, became a suspect due to fingerprints found at the crime scene and on Meredith's body. Guede was arrested in suspect that he could have taken part in the murder of Krecher. As Guede sat in jail amongst Knox and Sollecito, questions outside the jail focused around the role of Amanda and her boyfriends presence that night. Knox was left in jail until February 2008 when she stood in front of a jury of six pleading that she was "never read her rights, never appointed a lawyer and that there was never an interpreter present." In 2008 Knox and Sollecito were indicted for the murder of Meredith Krecher and in 2009 convicted to 25 and 26 years in prison. It was for this reason that this case became so highly publicized and sought after by the American people and most importantly overseas students. There were numerous prosecution arguments to why Knox and Sollecito were allegedly guilty.
The actual trial began in January 2009 and towards the end of November the prosecution defense began to end their cases. After 13 hours of deliberation, Amanda Knox was convicted to 26 years and Sollecito to 25. In April 2010, Knox filed for appeal but the process didn't start until December 11, 2010. The court ordered a re-examination of the evidence used to convict Knox which postponed the appeal until June 2011. On this date it was reported that DNA of the knife found in Krecher's room was not "supported by scientifically analytical procedures." Multiple witnesses testified in June 2011 that Knox was innocent along with boyfriend, Sollecito. The main witness, Rudy Guede's former cellmate testified the pair never had anything to do with the murder and that Guede told him that him and a friend had gone to the house with the intentions of having three-way sex. In refusing to do so, Krecher was then killed. Today on October 3, 2011, Amanda Knox and Rafaell Sollecito's convictions were overturned and dropped after much controversy and confessions. It's an unbelievable story that this young girl, my age, was placed in prison for such a prolonged amount of time for something she never did. This story catches my attention in such a stark light because I too studied abroad in Italy, where this murder took place, and believe that this could have happened to me. An innocent young woman was charged for the murder or her roommate because of unfair and unjust practices of the italian police and court system. Amanda Knox has been waiting for the day that the world would know that Meredith Krecher was just her friend and that something this bizarre and crazy could happen to anyone. Knox will never truly know what happened that night in that apartment in the little city of Perugia, Italy but what she does know is that she is free and can live her life as she pleases with the memory of her roommate Meredith Krecher who will always be with her.
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