Amanda Knox - guilty on all charges 24 years sentence

Amanda Knox, center, is escorted away from court at the end of the final day of her murder trial in Perugia, Italy. Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito are charged with the murder of Meredith Kercher. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

PERUGIA, Italy — Seattle’s Amanda Knox, whose trial on accusations that she murdered her roommate riveted the public on both sides of the Atlantic, has been found guilty.

The decision by the jury of six laymen and two judges came after midnight Friday in a courtroom in this Italian city, where Knox, a University of Washington student, had come to study. So had the dead woman, Meredith Kercher.

Knox’s former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, was also found guilty.

Inside the courtroom the Kercher family members sat on one side, the Knox family on the other. Their supporters and reporters flanked them.

Just outside, the scene in Perugia’s historical city center was an odd and sad carnival with dozens of satellite TV trucks parked around a colorful carousel, Christmas lights strung across the cobblestone streets and even a brightly lit pink ferris wheel turning outside the five-star Brufani hotel, home base for the American television network teams in town to cover the jury’s decision. The highly anticipated decision comes two years and one month after Kercher’s partially clothed body was found lying in a pool of blood in the apartment she shared with Knox. She had multiple knife wounds to the neck.

Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and an Ivory Coast immigrant drifter, Rudy Guede, were eventually charged with sexually assaulting and killing Kercher, and accused of staging the scene to appear as though there had been a burglary and rape to throw investigators off.

Knox and Sollecito have been in jail for more than two years as their trial inched forward. With time, the controversy surrounding the case has grown as a sharp divide hardened between those convinced of Knox’s innocence and those convinced of her guilt.

That tension — and the professional and personal stakes that some pinned on today’s outcome — has had a wide-ranging negative impact, both abroad and in Perugia. “This trial has turned this town upside down,” said Knox’s attorney Carlo Dalla Vedova, speaking to the jury earlier in the week. “All of the various protagonists in this case have suffered.”

Knox has drawn particularly close attention.

In the last two years, two widely differing narratives of the Seattle native have emerged: one of the wholesome but naive all-American girl overcome by a tidal wave of police errors and media misrepresentation, and the other of the diabolical, deceitful vixen who harbored hate for her pretty, goody-two shoes British roommate.

Police testified that they found Knox’s and Sollecito’s behavior in the days immediately after the slaying suspicious — especially that of the strange young foreigner — and immediately began tapping their phones and watching them.

Knox’s defense team noted in court that over the course of the five days that followed the slaying she was questioned by police for more than 53 hours. The last questioning session on Nov. 5, 2007, went into the early hours of the next morning and ended with Knox’s breaking down and claiming she had been in the flat the night of the slaying.

She also falsely accused Congolese pub owner Patrick Lumumba of being the killer.

Knox faces a civil slander suit as well as criminal charges for that false accusation.

Knox contends that police coerced her under harsh questioning that included two cuffs upside the back of the head. No attorney was present. Police say she was an informed witness giving voluntary statements and deny she was mistreated.

Lumumba was jailed for two weeks, then absolved of any connection to the crime when a bar patron provided a solid alibi. Ten days after Knox and Sollecito and Lumumba were arrested, DNA results identified another person, Rudy Guede.

Guede’s DNA and footprints were found near the body. Prosecutors also say DNA results show he sexually molested Kercher.

He fled to Germany but was soon arrested and extradited to Italy.

Guede was tried and convicted during a closed-door, fast-track trial last fall and sentenced to 30 years prison for his part. He is now appealing, asserting that he was in the bathroom when a fight broke out between Knox and Kercher.

He contends that he scuffled with an Italian man, then tried to stop Kercher’s bleeding before panicking and fleeing.

But prosecutors maintain Guede, Knox and Sollecito acted together: Sollecito restrained Kercher, Guede sexually molested her and Knox delivered the fatal stab wound.

Prosecutors then say that Knox and Sollecito returned to the scene of the crime to stage a burglary and rape to throw investigators off.

As motive for the crime, prosecutors argued that Knox had built-up hate for Kercher, who complained about Knox’s hygiene and household habits, including the fact that she kept condoms and a small sex toy in a transparent beauty case in the bathroom.

An argument about missing money ensued, and eventually degenerated into an “downward spiral of unstoppable violence” that ended when Kercher was stabbed to silence her.

Defense lawyers called the prosecutor’s theory “pure fantasy” and instead presented proof that Knox and Kercher got along well and had attended a number of social events together.

Since the trial began last January, more than 100 witnesses have testified over the course of 50 hearings. Witnesses and consultants gave conflicting testimony about the couple’s behavior, statements as well as the hotly contested DNA evidence.

Rome forensic police testified that five mixed DNA samples — blood or DNA that tested positive for both Kercher and Amanda Knox — were found in various rooms of the apartment.

Defense lawyers argued Knox’s DNA could have been there for ages and was not strange, since she lived in the house. Knox’s DNA was found on the handle of the kitchen knife that prosecutors allege was used to stab Kercher, a trace of whose DNA was found on the blade.

Defense experts contested much of the evidence, alleging the investigation had been badly bungled and the labwork was incomplete.

Kercher’s parents, two brothers and sister have supported the prosecution’s theory and as civil plaintiffs in the trial have asked for $38 million compensation. Several of the family members, as well as Kercher’s English friends, testified.

Knox’s family and friends also gave testimony on her behalf, describing her as an innocent, studious, normal girl, quite the opposite of how prosecutors had described her.

Both families were present in the courtroom Friday when the jury’s decision was announced and were expected to talk to reporters in Perugia after the verdict.

Seattle PI

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