Legal Mayhem and a Media Spectacle: A Timeline of the Controversial Amanda Knox Case

The Amanda Knox case quickly became one of the most closely watched international criminal cases in semi-recent memory, drawing worldwide attention for its outrageous twists and incessant media coverage. It began on November 1, 2007, when 21-year-old British exchange student Meredith Kercher was viciously murdered in the Perugia, Italy, home she shared with American exchange student Amanda Knox, then 20 years old. What followed was a years-long legal battle as Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were arrested, convicted, acquitted and retried in the Italian courts.

From the outset, the case proved messy. Conflicting forensic evidence, changing testimony and aggressive press coverage alternately painted Knox as a framed woman and a femme fatale. The involvement of a third suspect, Rudy Guede—who was eventually convicted in a separate trial— added to the case’s complexity. As it twisted through the Italian courts, the case triggered heated debates about justice and media ethics.

The following day, Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, went back to the apartment Knox shared with Kercher after spending the night at Sollecito’s place. They immediately noticed various things that were amiss: the front door was open; there were drops of blood in the bathroom; a window was broken in another roommate’s room; there was unflushed feces in the toilet. Meredith’s bedroom door was locked, but she wasn’t responding. Knox called police, and a friend of one of Knox’s other roommates kicked down Kercher’s door and found the young woman’s half-naked body beneath a duvet. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed.

Knox and Sollecito were detained on suspicion of murder and sexual assault after hours of laborious overnight questioning, during which Knox gave conflicting accounts and falsely accused Lumumba, her boss at a local bar, of being involved in the crime. Lumumba was then arrested, despite having a solid alibi. (He was later released for lack of evidence.) Police claimed Knox and Sollecito’s stories were inconsistent and said they’d behaved suspiciously after the murder. Police found no physical evidence tying Knox to Kercher’s bedroom, though a knife with traces of both Kercher’s and Knox’s DNA was found in Sollecito’s kitchen. During investigators’ questioning, Knox was allegedly hit by police; her father also claimed that investigators psychologically abused her.

After his DNA was found at the crime scene via a vaginal swab, a man named Rudy Hermann Guede was arrested in Mainz, Germany, after fleeing Italy in the aftermath of Kercher’s murder. Guede had left a trail of digital evidence, including phone records and online activity, which helped investigators nab him. After his extradition to Italy, Guede chose a fast-track trial and received a 30-year sentence that was cut down to 16 years on appeal. He was released from prison in 2021.

The couple was charged with murder, sexual assault and faking a break-in. They were accused of killing Kercher during what prosecutors claimed was a drug-fueled, unpremeditated attack. Prosecutors also claimed the couple had led Kercher into an “extreme sex game.” The trial launched amid nonstop press coverage, both in Italy and abroad, with Knox (nicknamed “Foxy Knoxy”) portrayed as either a virtuous student or a manipulative seductress. Both she and Sollecito insisted they were innocent. The case against them relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, questionable forensic work and the couple’s sometimes-odd behavior after the murder —like Knox doing splits in the police station waiting area while being questioned.

Nearly one year after it began, the trial ended with both Knox and Sollecito being found guilty. The courtroom was full of journalists, lawyers and members of the public, and some spectators cheered, believing justice had been served, while others (especially Knox’s family and supporters) were in tears. Knox reportedly sobbed after the verdict was announced, while Sollecito appeared “impassive.” Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito received 25 years. They were also ordered to pay Kercher’s family more than $7 million, and Knox had to pay Lumumba approximately $60,000 for defamation.

At the appeals trial, Knox and Sollecito’s lawyers focused heavily on DNA evidence, especially the traces of Kercher’s DNA on a knife from Sollecito’s kitchen, as well as DNA from Sollecito which had been found on Kercher’s bra clasp. The defense argued that those pieces of evidence had either been contaminated or mishandled. Knox continued to insist on her innocence, telling the court, “Maddy was ... murdered and I always wanted justice for her.” She also said she’d “lost a friend in the most brutal, inexplicable way” and that she’d lost her faith in the police: “My full trust in the police has been betrayed.”

The court found that the prosecution's case relied on unreliable forensic evidence, including the DNA traces found on the knife and Kercher’s bra clasp, which were deemed potentially contaminated. The court also criticized the Italian police’s handling of the investigation and the lack of a clear motive for Knox and Sollecito to have committed the crime. After this, both were acquitted and released from prison after spending nearly four years behind bars.

To the public’s shock, Italy’s highest court overturned the acquittals of Knox and Sollecito in 2013. The court found that the Florence appeals court had failed to consider key pieces of evidence, including the possibility of multiple attackers and discrepancies in the duo’s alibis (Sollecito first claimed he spent the whole night working on his computer, but police found no evidence that the device had been used, while Knox initially told investigators she was home during the murder and had overheard Kercher’s screams.) The ruling criticized the lower court and ordered a retrial in Florence. This reversal reopened the case, but Knox was tried in absentia. She had returned to Seattle to finish her degree at the University of Washington following her 2011 prison release.

When the Florence Court of Appeals reinstated Knox and Sollecito’s guilty verdicts in 2014, Knox was sentenced to 28½ years, and Sollecito to 25 years. The court cited forensic evidence (including, once again, the infamous bra clasp and knife) and ruled that earlier acquittals had failed to properly incorporate other pieces of information. Instead of a sex game, prosecutors proposed a new motive: escalating tensions between Knox and Kercher about cleanliness in the apartment. The judge also ordered Knox and Sollecito to pay damages to Kercher’s family. Both defendants appealed the ruling to Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation, which would issue a final decision in 2015.

Nearly eight years after Kercher’s death, Knox and Sollecito were definitively cleared of any wrongdoing. Italy’s highest court annulled their convictions after 10 hours of deliberations. Knox, who was still living in Seattle despite having her guilty verdict reinstated in 2014, said she was “relieved and grateful” for the court’s decision. The court did, however, uphold a prior slander conviction against Knox for falsely accusing Lumumba, her former boss, of Kercher’s murder.