Original subtitles

Seven out of ten people that you can meet in the center of Perugia are students.

It is like being on an island with just students, so everything is focused on the students.

My pub “Le Chic” was here. This door here was the main entrance.

It was a club on three floors.

First floor you had the big bar. Second floor the small bar and on the third floor there was a stage for the musicians or the DJ.

I met Amanda Knox because she needed money.

A friend of mine introduced her to me saying:

“She is my friend.

She loves Perugia and would like to stay here longer but she has not enough money so she needs a job.”

And we talked for a short time and then I told her to come to my club in the evening.

So she went to the club with a group of people.

There were many girls probably more than twenty.

Also, poor Meredith was with them.

I remember Meredith that day

because I used to bring from Poland a Polish vodka called Zubrowska

and she stopped to say to me: “It is the first place here where I’ve seen Zubrowska.”

I asked her: “Do you know it?” and she replied: “Yes, yes.”

She used to work as a bartender in London and they used to do the Mojitos with Zubrowska

So I said to her: “If you’re a bartender you should come and work in the club sometimes.”

Then I asked her to show me how she made it, inviting her to come behind the counter

and she made her mojito with Zubrowska.

Then I spoke with Amanda and we agreed that she would start to work here.

The 1st of November for me as for anyone else, it was an ordinary day.

So I texted Amanda saying: “I don’t need you come to work today.

It's like a Sunday today, and I'll be working alone.”

And Amanda wrote back to me: “Okay, Patrick. See you later.”

I was at home and the Deputy Chief Inspector of the flying squad called me.

And he told me that there was the body of a still unidentified girl

in a house in Via Della Pergola, number 7

located outside of the old town.

Then this girl was identified as a British girl from London - Croydon.

In the meantime the journalists arrived

and placed themselves in front of the car park above.

When we arrived the two young people, Amanda and Sollecito, were obviously there exchanging embraces.

What struck me the most was that while Amanda was very scared

Sollecito seemed to be more confident. He was the one trying to support and reassure Amanda.

We knew Raffaele Sollecito as Amanda’s friend.

And Raffaele used to arrive 5 or 10 minutes

before Amanda finished working.

He used to enter and sit down or stayed standing up somewhere here on the first floor

and then when she finished, they used to leave together.

I remember that at one point the coroner, Dr. Luca Lalli arrived.

I asked him to get the internal body temperature to establish accurately the time of death.

The scientist in charge of the forensic police

stopped me saying: “Please can you postpone this procedure because...

I want to prevent any potential contamination.”

The coroner didn’t say anything, so I accepted the request.

However the coroner measured the rigor mortis but he didn’t get the internal temperature.

It was time to open the club

and two American girls arrived who used to work for me.

They told me that they heard that Amanda’s English friend who lived with her has died.

When I heard that, I thought it wasn't true.

So I called Amanda...

And Amanda replied: “Yes, it is true. She died and we are at the police station now.”

I felt very bad.

It was really bad news. All the community of the old town of Perugia was mourning.

I remember the mother. I saw her after the autopsy.

You could see the immense pain that she had always tried to hide

Meredith had been autopsied in the morgue.

The mother arrived and asked me for permission to come in, so I let her in.

She looked at her. It was a very touching scene.

Then she made a gesture to me in this way...

as she wanted to give her a kiss.

At that moment the meeting was really special.

We were in the very first moments after the murder.

So we were trying to understand what could have happened.

They told me about their daughter, what they knew she was doing in Perugia.

There were no reasons that they could think of that could give rise to the violence that had taken away their daughter's life.

Meredith's neck had three wounds:

One deep and wide to the left at the front of the neck, on this side.

And two smaller ones on the other side.

These are wounds that correspond to a point-and-cut instrument.

So they can be attributed to an instrument with a point and a blade such as a knife.

When Luca Lalli finishes the autopsy he concludes that the cause of death of Meredith

depended on three wounds to the neck and the spill of blood.

This blood entered the lungs drowning this poor girl in her own blood.

In forensic jargon this is called internal drowning or internal submersion.

There were also grasping injuries, or grip injuries.

The evidence revealed the crime was committed by more than one person.

Probably someone grabbed her while someone else was torturing her.

The first few days were total confusion.

We were all trying to figure out what had happened.

Initially all Meredith’s friends were considered as witnesses as they wanted to know

her lifestyle and understand what could have happened in the days leading up to her murder.

She said she was very tired and the next day she would have been very busy

so she just wanted to go home and go to bed.

Roughly around 9 p.m. Meredith was home.

I have a very distinctive memory of those very hours.

Young people on the steps of the cathedral who immediately put up a tribute in honor of Meredith.

And I have a beautiful memory of this father who slowly walks towards the steps of the Cathedral and deposits a lit candle.

Watching that father’s act,

I thought about all those parents who had kids studying away from home or abroad.

It is an image that I will probably never forget.

The police had questioned Sollecito and for the first time that night

he distanced himself from Amanda

and he said that he had told a lot of lies until then because Amanda asked him to.

He was home and Amanda came back around half past one. That time was a little compromising.

In my opinion they are statements that arose out of moments of confusion.

So I don't think they are relevant and can be considered.

They were taken in a very stressful moment.

That night Amanda went to police headquarters, they had called Sollecito in, but not Amanda

but she said: “I’ll come with you.”

When she got there, she was doing gymnastics, the cartwheel. And they thought she was acting crazy.

Then they question her. The prosecutor comes in a first time then a second time

because everybody was saying : “It’s them, it’s them.”

This is the night at the police headquarters, where there is the transition from suspects to accused.

He told her to not go to the club because there were few people. It was a long weekend.

She replied: “See you later”

but she thought in English while answering in Italian. She wrote a text message if I remember well.

The police officers became suspicious and asked her for more details.

She did not accuse herself.

She accused Lumumba.

She put herself in the kitchen. The kitchen is around 5/6/7 meters from Meredith’s room.

She said that Lumumba was in Meredith's room. “I heard and understood that he killed her.” - she said that.

So, she never made self-accusatory statements but accusatory statements towards Lumumba.

At that moment those three guys seemed involved.

I heard someone knocking at the door.

And I heard a female voice saying to me: “It's the police. Open the door.” And I half-opened it.

I saw that there were a lot of people and then I said: “Ah but I'm with a baby and... No, no... open. Open.”

So I opened and they were there… I don't remember but…

certainly more than 15 policemen and they immediately handcuffed me.

And my partner asked them: “What did he do?”

They replied: “He knows what he did. He knows it.”

So they grabbed and brought me to the police station.

The teamwork of the police and other departments

has allowed the prosecuting judicial authority to issue

three arrest warrants for the crime of conspiracy to commit voluntary homicide

and conspiracy to commit sexual assault.

The first time we defenders met Amanda, November 8, 2007 was in front of the judge.

We advised Amanda to say:

“I deny the charge and I will not answer any questions”.

After that the prosecutor allowed us to speak with her for half an hour.

I spoke little English,

I understood very little but...

...that girl was determined and lucid.

Also she told us that Meredith and her were friends.

The interrogation was always the same: “You know what you’ve done. Why have you done this?”

and so I’d answer: “What have I done?”

And it kept going on

until I found out by myself that it was all about Meredith’s death.

So I asked if it was about Meredith’s death.

They said: “Yes, you remember now”.

And then I started saying, “No, how could you think something like that?

I was at the bar. I was working at the bar”.

And they say : “Oh no, we know that the bar was closed”. So I replied: “I was at the bar with other people”.

I didn’t even know that Amanda was arrested. I didn’t know anything.

Then when they brought me a document and I read it.

It was Amanda’s declaration

on which she was saying: “I had an appointment with Patrick and we went to my house.”

I was so confused in that moment that I didn’t realize she was accusing me.

I asked them: “Did Amanda do that?” because it seemed that she was confessing to killing Meredith.

Another cop who was nicer replied to me: “You aren’t understanding. She is saying that you did it”.

So I said that I didn’t do it.

Then they said: “If you say it would be better for you.” I replied: “No”

I know what happened now.

If we are here because you thought that I was going to confess to something that I didn’t do

just to make you happy. I will never do that.

So take me to jail.

After that they asked me if I wanted a hood

and I said: “Why? I don’t want it. I have nothing to hide. Nothing”.

When I entered the footprints were still not visible in the corridor which would have been highlighted with luminol.

It was understood that there had been an attempt to clean because some traces were only highlighted by the luminol.

Others were highlighted because there were traces of blood.

But in the end the footprints weren’t considered important evidence,

because for a start they had been cleaned, and also they were of people who lived in the house, because there were also Amanda's and also Meredith's.

The scene has been cleaned, there is no doubt about that.

We were doing an inspection at Sollecito's house when a police officer found a knife

that was the type that could have caused the injury.

Also, this knife seemed to have been cleaned and it smelled of a solvent.

So they took it to the forensic police in Rome.

There were several knives in that drawer.

The investigator who found it was asked several times:

“Why did you chose that one, excluding the other ones?”

Because there were similar knives like in any other kitchen.

The answer amazed everyone.

They said it was an investigative intuition.

The news about the mixed trace found on the blade of the seized knife comes over the radio at 5 p.m.

As soon as the genetic investigation in Rome is completed.

I almost crash my car because I realize in less than a minute that it was bad for the trial, if there is a blade that binds the two girls.

The mood was that everyone, they were jumping for joy everywhere. The newspapers, the televisions, ordinary people.

This is going to nail her.

The night that Meredith was killed I was working by myself at the bar.

There was a group of Erasmus students and this professor from Switzerland.

I wanted to offer him wine, but he insisted on paying and explained that the Swiss government was going to reimburse that expense.

So I had no idea that receipt was going to become the major proof that my bar was open.

Lumumba had the sheer luck to cross paths with a Swiss client,

who could remember precisely the time when he was in Lumumba's bar .

Something around nine o’clock

which ruled out immediately Lumumba’s participation in the murder.

In fact, a few days later even though he did spend 13, 14 days in jail,

Lumumba was released.

The investigators discovered that there were fingerprints of blood on a pillow near Meredith's body.

So they order an immediate investigation.

Rudy formally becomes a suspect.

And where is he? At that time nobody knows.

What they knew was his name, his nationality,

where he lived, who his friends and his contacts were,

but he couldn’t be found.

Whilst looking for Rudy Guede, the investigators ask one of Rudy’s closest friends to try and contact him.

So, his closest friend calls him from the police station.

Guede: The girl who was killed, I met her the previous evening...

Friend: This Meredith?

Yes, Meredith.

She was disguised as a vampire.

Well, the next day, we had an appointment to see each other again.

They're saying that she told her friends she was tired and wanted to go home.

But in fact no.

We saw each other at Meredith's house and we started talking...

And I, well, I tried, I mean I made a pass at her and she was willing.

But in the end we didn't do anything because...she didn't have any condoms and neither did I.

Guede: And after that I went to the bathroom. I really had to go take a shit.

And I heard the doorbell.

So for me it was...it could have been anyone for me, see?

Friend: Sure, sure, sure.

It could have been Amanda, it could have been...

I was in the bathroom, in the bathroom maybe five minutes

but then I heard a scream, but let me tell you, a really loud scream.

I came out and I saw him.

But who?

His back was turned, and then I said: “What the hell is going on?”

What the hell was this guy like?

It was almost dark, I didn't see his face, but I say he was Italian...

we insulted each other...

and he didn't have a foreign accent.

I hurried out of the bathroom, I fell on the ground

and then the guy ran away, he escaped, he went out the door, see?

In prison in Germany I explained to him that there were important circumstantial elements about him.

There were his bloody fingerprints on the pillow next to Meredith's body.

There was his DNA in Meredith's vagina.

And there are also the biological traces that he left in the bathroom and so it was absolutely certain his involvement at the scene of the murder.

So I explained to him that the circumstantial framework was a very serious picture.

The lawyer's job is not to believe or disbelieve what the client tells you.

The lawyer's job is to understand immediately what are the elements that can lead to a serious defense.

During the second interrogation, he (Guede) changes the beginning.

He hears Amanda knocking. He realises they are arguing.

Then he always hears the scream and rushes out.

He describes the guy in a way more compatible with Sollecito.

So when Meredith is dying and the guy still has the knife, Amanda is already out in the courtyard.

Rudy’s version has always been the same.

He certainly didn't mean to say that Amanda wasn't there.

Because he has always said that he heard Amanda arriving at the house

and he heard her arguing with Meredith.

Guede: It could have been anyone for me, see?

Friend: Sure, sure, sure.

It could have been Amanda, it could have been...

In two other versions he (Guede) says: “I saw a girl under the moon.” But it was raining that night and the moon was not visible.

The girl had blond hair about 162cm tall. That's a weird coincidence.

In another version he said he saw a guy with a cap that I bumped into in the hallway.

That would be Sollecito.

It is a comedy.

There is definite data on the poor victim's wrists that lead back to Rudy Guede's DNA

and therefore there is no question that he was holding her by the wrists

and obviously holding her by the wrists he could not injure and kill her with the knife at the same time.

Hence the hypothesis of undergoing a group sexual experience

being threatened and wounded many times with small knife point wounds.

On that hook there was

the genetic profile of Rudy and Sollecito and Meredith’s genetic profile.

That means the two guys violently ripped Meredith’s bra.

Using extreme energy to do it and each of the two guys left behind these genetic profiles

I was sure that all the negative media attention would have been dumped on Rudy and he would have paid the consequences.

Because then the ‘idea of punishment’ would have taken over.

And I'm sure Rudy would have paid the highest price.

So to be safe, the trials needed to be separated.

When the lawyers announced that the two defendants would have gone through the normal procedure.

We chose to do the fast-track trial, and this was a kind of advantage in Rudy's trial

because we were able to go through the trial with some peace of mind, with much less pressure.

There are no witnesses, no expert witnesses, we can only use the data that the prosecutor has collected.

So the law says that if you choose this procedure you get to be given 1/3 off the sentence.

Rudy Guede's verdict states that there was complicity with people who remained unknown.

So they meant Amanda and Raffaele.

The following question was asked to our experts: “Could the murder have been committed by one person or more?”

“Even by one person” they replied but it’s easier to see more people in the mechanics of the crime.

The range that had been given initially by the investigators was very wide

and there was no scientific way to have a precise estimate of the time of her death.

It only indicated an approximate time of 11/ 11:30pm.

It was a precise analysis of the victim's phone records that made it possible

to narrow this range.

The important information that came up was that the phone received a text message at 10.15pm or 10.13pm

but the signal wasn’t coming from Via della Pergola any more

it was in another area, the area where the cellphone was found

which is called Via Sperandio.

I would say it happened between 9.15pm and 9.30pm

or maybe 9.45pm.

It was important to narrow down the time because there were some interactions on Raffaele’s computer around that time

proving that Raffaele was at home.

It's clear that if it was taken immediately it would not have exposed itself to disputes.

There is no doubt about that.

But we also have to remember that it was a crime scene

so it wasn't a place where everybody could come and go as they wanted.

So it's not that easy.

The contamination still has to have direct contact.

The investigators found two traces on the alleged murder weapon. One was on the handle and the other one was on the blade.

The result of some analysis stated that the trace on the handle belonged to Amanda and the trace on the blade belonged to Meredith.

However the traces were very small so they couldn’t carry out an additional evaluation.

For this reason, this ‘proof’ couldn’t be considered reliable and accepted as evidence.

Regardless, the small trace that was found could have been analyzed

to understand if it was a blood trail or to identify a genetic profile.

The police chose to carry out a genetic analysis of the DNA

and according to this analysis they recognized Meredith’s genetic profile.

The key part was to get a profile.

So which testing do you do… Is it blood?

No, it's not blood.

So, hold on, do I do a colorimetric analysis to see if it’s saliva.

No wait. I do another test to see if there are cells or stripes on the slide.

It is all material that is lost.

So if I feel as an expert that there is little quantity

I choose what will be the ‘key analysis’ in my case. Right?

I knew from the beginning that there weren’t strong elements supporting the accusation

So I felt very confident in the legal process.

When Rudy Guede was about to be heard during the trial, we were ready for any kind of statement.

He never answered.

So his five different versions (of events) remain five different versions.

Without any evidentiary value.

We wanted these two expert reports on the knife and on the hook.

So the fact that the evaluation wasn’t approved worried us.

However we were always counting on a positive result.

The first trial was a complete trial. 112 hearings,

that was a guarantee!

But if we didn't dismantle the argument of the knife and the mixed [blood] trail,

the outcome to me seemed a foregone conclusion.

I remember closing the defense testimonies that morning.

Then I spent the day in Perugia waiting for the verdict which came out late in the evening.

The expectation was high and so was the hope of getting a positive result.

There was a lot of tension.

Perugia was filled with international press.

Everyone was waiting for this verdict.

Sentenced to the penalty of 26 years of imprisonment for Knox

and to the penalty of 25 years for Sollecito,

the primary sentence being 24 years of imprisonment,

as well as the payment of legal costs and the cost of custody in prison for both.

The first verdict discouraged us, it’s true.

But when we started the appeal trial we had so many elements and we realised there were so many mistakes in the first trial.

In particular, we highlighted the fact that they never allowed the expert reports.

The admission of the expert reports.

The knife and the bra clasp

an avenue opened up to me.

Some elements came out like traces of starch on the knife handle

and the kit that was used for the examination of the mixed trace, which was very small

and therefore did not allow the procedure of the amplification of the genetic data

was the wrong one.

So it loses effectiveness.

The starch retains everything.

If there was blood it would have been retained.

Honestly the fact that the only place of contamination that we had was on that hook

that was in the mat where there were also some socks.

The socks had no DNA from Sollecito but his DNA was only on that hook.

Honestly...

I can’t accept that.

We summarise the first appeal - we won...

and nobody cares.

When you bring 1,000 people to applaud a conviction and boo an acquittal for a common crime, albeit a murder among 20-year-olds

a reflection needs to be made.

I knew 50 percent of the people who booed me.

So this trial also had a very dangerous impact.

So when Amanda was convicted I thought it was right.

And when she was released, I thought it was a miscarriage of justice.

I don’t want to say that the judges didn’t do the right thing.

I think the judges are human and they made a mistake releasing Amanda.

In the summer we filed the appeal at the Supreme Court in Rome. I was going to Rome by train.

We sweated a summer doing the last appeal.

It's a thin road that, being optimistic, gave us 10% of hope.

‘Where is the truth?’

In the evening at 11PM they call us on the cell phone telling us to come back to the courtroom in 15 minutes.

We are still waiting.

Then the court comes out. All full, journalists, policemen, all the courtroom was full with people.

“Given Article 620 and 530, that is the one of acquittal. Acquits the defendants for not having committed the act.”

And I stood still.

Impassive.

Neither was I sweating, nor cold, nor hungry, nor thirsty.

I was there with a police officer.

“Let’s smoke a cigarette?” I ask them

and I am not a smoker.

It was the most important moment of my professional life.

The verdict that has now been issued is a verdict that doesn’t say we were right

it says that we were totally right because the outcomes could have been two:

we annul this verdict but delve into it elsewhere

and instead the annulment is without referral.

We felt that the elements were suitable and sufficient to support the prosecution thesis and so did many judges, not just us.

Evidently, it’s a trial that has gone through a history of alternating judgments

so we noted the judgements that resulted in convictions

tonight we take note of the judgement of acquittal.

I’m very happy yes.

That sentence, to read it now after five years, makes me shudder. Doesn't it?

How much we have risked!

“Although animated by moral conviction of the defendants’ guilt...”

Who knows what they meant...

I certainly cannot hide the fact that it was a moment of great emotion and great joy.

At last there was the end word to this eight years case

that had tormented these people who indeed suffered a great drama.

The justice is not even in the final verdict because saying that Rudy killed in collaboration with others

it means that others have not been found.

So this is not justice. It is just a part of justice.

I am not at peace with myself because I didn’t accept it.

From the very beginning this case was influenced by the media.

I thought the media pressure couldn’t reach the magistrates.

I was wrong.

If we expected a restorative justice perhaps it has not arrived.

If we expected satisfactory justice perhaps it was not all the way.

However we have to think that the judicial system is the backbone of a country's democracy.

There is no such thing as a perfect murder; there are imperfect investigations

That’s what I have always said to my students in the 40 years I have been teaching at University.

I thought about Meredith many, many times

she was always in my thoughts when I was going through all the analyses

even the ones that obviously concerned her directly.

And I thought about putting myself in her shoes and thinking what a bad tragedy really had befallen her.

There is underlying grief for the loss of such a young girl that touches anyone.