How Amanda Knox and Other Crime Survivors Reclaimed Their Stories

What path does one take after being publicly connected to an infamous crime? What are you to do when everyone thinks they already know who you are based on a single tragic event? For some who have been publicly linked to famous crimes, advocacy and activism offer worthwhile paths. Others, however, find different ways to reclaim their own stories and define themselves beyond a single moment of tragedy.

Amanda Knox is a name known to many. The story of her murder trial has been written about, dramatized and publicized for nearly two decades, ever since she was accused of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher, while studying abroad in Italy in 2007. After a high-profile trial, Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, while Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years. Knox spent nearly four years in prison before an appeals court overturned their murder convictions in 2011. The pair were convicted again in 2014, before Italy’s highest court definitively acquitted them of Kercher’s murder in 2015.

Throughout the case, Knox and Sollecito maintained their innocence, saying that they had been at Sollecito’s home at the time Kercher was murdered and had nothing to do with her death. But despite their assertions of innocence, their public images remain inexorably intertwined with the story of the crime.

Since their convictions were overturned for the second time, Sollecito has done his best to move on from that time of his life. According to his social media profile, he still lives in Italy and now works as a software engineer. He has appeared on a few podcasts and recently gave an interview to major Italian TV network, Rai 2, where he spoke about “what it means to go through, face and win a media trial as an innocent.”

During the trial, Knox was painted as a murderous “she-devil” by the Italian prosecutorial team. Now she is interested in reclaiming the narrative of her own life and adding nuance and balance to her public image. Knox hosts the podcast Hard Knox with Amanda Knox, has written two memoirs and in August 2026 debuted Cartwheel, a one-woman comedy show that she performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest performing arts festival in the world. When her comedy show was first reported in the press, the announcement was met with harsh criticism from the Kercher family, as well as online critics who started a petition to have the show removed from the festival’s lineup. The show itself received mixed reviews from critics. “It’s not tasteless, it’s not insensitive but it’s not funny,” one reviewer wrote. “...Cartwheel is an undeniably interesting show which has been well written—it’s just not really a comedy.”

Even if the punchlines didn’t all land, it was a bold attempt to rewrite the narrative of death and loss that has surrounded Knox since that night in Perugia almost 20 years ago.

Some trauma survivors find solace in physical activity. Elizabeth Smart, who survived a kidnapping and nine months of captivity in 2002 and 2003, has taken up competitive bodybuilding while continuing her work as an advocate for survivors of sexual violence.

A 2025 observational study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that trauma-exposed adults who reported being physically active also reported fewer PTSD symptoms and better sleep quality than those who reported no exercise. Research has also found that resistance training may be a useful addition to standard PTSD treatment.

Smart was held captive by her abductors for nine months as a teenager, during which time her story was shared with millions of people around the world through widespread media coverage. She was rescued and reunited with her family in 2003.

Smart said she was initially hesitant to enter her first competition and post about it online. She was worried that she would be “judged, not taken seriously, somehow perceived as less than or now unworthy to continue work as an advocate for all survivors,” she wrote in an Instagram post featuring photos of her competing.

“It struck me how eerily familiar these feelings and thoughts are for too many survivors," she said. "I think it's easy to be labeled as one thing, and honestly, that's not me nor do I think it's any of us. We are more than just one topic, one idea, one label.” Smart has now competed four times, most recently at the Wasatch Warrior competition in Salt Lake City in the spring of 2026, where she placed first in the Fit Model Novice category. The experience left her “seriously considering” competing in an all-female event in Nashville that will recognize women who have survived trauma. “This was a big change for me, it was hard, it pushed me, challenged me not to give up. I am so proud of myself for doing this. I am so proud of my body, and I want to celebrate it,” she said in the Instagram post. 

Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection to a plot with her then-boyfriend to kill her mother in 2015 after enduring years of abuse, has starred in multiple television specials telling the oft-sensationalized story of her life from her own perspective. 

After the murder, a documentary featuring Blanchard's story was released, bringing widespread media attention to the abuse she endured at the hands of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard. In the unusual case, many experts believe Dee Dee suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, forcing her daughter to use a wheelchair and feeding tube and manipulating documents to convince people her daughter was chronically ill enough to be kept home from school. 

Blanchard was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was released on parole in December 2023 after serving more than eight years.

In a six-part docuseries titled The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a documentary crew visited Blanchard in prison and featured interviews with her leading up to and after her release. 

“There's things that I’ve kept so private” she said in the series. “I will finally share my story the way that it should be shared.” Blanchard has also written a book called My Time to Stand, which features family photos and previously undisclosed facts about the case, and it became a New York Times bestseller after its release in April 2026.

For Chanel Miller, who read a victim impact statement under the pseudonym Emily Doe during the sentencing of the man who sexually assaulted her, reclaiming her story meant revealing her identity publicly.

Now an author and public speaker, Miller first became widely known in 2016 when her anonymous victim impact statement in the case against Brock Turner went viral. Her words helped spark a national conversation about the treatment of sexual assault survivors, particularly in the criminal justice system and on college campuses.

Three years later, she published the acclaimed book Know My Name: A Memoir, reclaiming a narrative that had, until then, largely been defined by the crime committed against her. Miller says that she found her voice again while writing the book. “I thought anonymity was a shield after my sexual assault. But coming forward brought me back to myself,” she wrote in an article in Time Magazine.

Though their most well-known moments may be associated with crime or death, these high-profile crime survivors are showing—through satire, performances, writing, advocacy and social media—that it is possible to reclaim their stories and define themselves beyond the events that made them famous.