Four-year nightmare ends for a girl ‘world got wrong’

*When a fresh-faced Amanda Knox arrived in Perugia four years ago, she was just one of thousands of American students enjoying being young, free and single away from home.

But her life changed overnight when she found herself caught up in one of the most high-profile murder cases of recent years and shot to international fame.

Following her arrest, her good looks and the lurid headlines about her sex life splashed across newspapers made her a transatlantic object of fascination.

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Her nickname Foxy Knoxy on social networking site MySpace was assumed to be a reference to her sex appeal and was adopted by the press. In fact, her friends and family insisted, it was a monikor born of her skills on the football field as a youngster.

This was just one of the many ways in which the world got Amanda wrong, her supporters, who launched a massive PR machine to help clear her name, argued.

Originally from Seattle, Miss Knox was a University of Washington student who went to Italy to study.

She described herself on her MySpace page as a lover of “good wine, rock climbing, backpacking long distances with people I love, yoga on a rainy day, making coffee and lots of languages”.

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Not long after arriving in the medieval hilltop town where she hoped to learn, make new friends and enjoy herself, she developed a relationship with Italian IT graduate Raffaele Sollecito.

And the night her housemate Meredith Kercher was murdered, she was at her boyfriend’s house, smoking marijuana and making love, she said.

But on November 6, 2007, she was arrested in connection with the killing and was accused of playing a leading role in what prosecutors alleged was a bungled sex game that ended in the violent death of the pretty University of Leeds student.

Miss Knox denied any wrongdoing, but during a lengthy police interrogation she eventually pointed the finger at local bar owner Diya “Patrick” Lumumba.

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Explaining how she came to make the false accusation, she later told jurors she had been confused and under pressure. It was the officers questioning her who had suggested Mr Lumumba and so, worn down by the long interrogation, she agreed,

That slip-up spelled the start of a nightmarish four years in jail. The first stage of her spell behind bars lasted almost a year, during which she endured an agonising wait to learn whether she would be charged with murder or released.

This culminated with the news she had been dreading on October 28, 2008, when Judge Paolo Micheli decided she and Mr Sollecito should indeed stand trial.

So began a further 13-month wait behind bars for the pair, interrupted only for a couple of days a week when they attended the many hearings in the lengthy judicial process.

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But despite her young age and the hardship of being locked up in a foreign country, Knox has appeared to hold her own throughout most of her ordeal.

In June 2009 she confidently gave evidence in fluent Italian, which she had mainly learned in prison. She told the court how surprised she had been when police interrogated her after the murder and how bad she felt about implicating Mr Lumumba, who employed her as a barmaid.

She was in shock, she said, when she heard about the gruesome death of her housemate and could not believe what had happened, and contrary to what had been suggested, she had enjoyed a good relationship with Miss Kercher, she insisted.

Together the two of them discussed literature, dined in restaurants and went to Perugia’s annual chocolate festival.

She could not understand why she was arrested, she said.

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While explanations and apologies may not be forthcoming from those responsible for her long sojourn behind bars, yesterday’s verdict does at least provide an answer to the long-asked question of who really killed Miss Kercher.

With Miss Knox and Mr Sollecito finally in the clear, there is only one person left with blood on his hands.

Small-time drug dealer Rudy Guede from the Ivory Coast did not have his conviction overturned on appeal and remains legally culpable of the murder.

Unlike the other two, he admitted being at the scene on the night in question, but claimed he had emerged from the bathroom to find Miss Kercher murdered by someone else’s hand.

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It was not a version of events anyone has ever given much credence to, besides his own lawyers.

Nor have there been scores of supporters, friends and family members leaping to his defence to protest that he could not possibly be guilty.

Miss Knox’s family and friends, on the other hand, have been vocal in their support for her throughout, backed by a wave of public support in the US, and vehemently rejected the portrayal of her as a wild child fuelled by alcohol, drugs and sex.

Her younger sister Deanna has described her instead as the “kindest person” she knows - a normal girl who did not “go crazy” with men in Italy, as her detractors once suggested.

Her father, Curt Knox, insisted she was a “regular kid”.

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In marked contrast to the Kercher family, who have largely maintained a dignified silence since losing their daughter and sister, the Knoxs deployed every resource at their disposal to save theirs.

Knox’s stepfather, Chris Mellas, even moved to Perugia to be near his stepdaughter and attend her appeal hearings.

Her acquittal secured, Knox is now expected to return to the US with her family at the earliest possible opportunity.

Her next move remains to be seen, but she is known to have been penning her memoirs in prison, while rumours of million dollar bids for the first television interview with her have been rife.

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Prosecutors are expected to appeal, even in the knowledge that once Knox has gone home she will almost certainly not be extradited back to Italy.

In the meantime her family and friends will celebrate with her, as, having collected her belongings from the prison where she had been confined for four years, she was expected to leave last night, a free woman.

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