Raffaele Sollecito’s changing alibi

On November 4th, 2007, as the police in perugia were in day three of the murder investigation, the Sunday Mirror in the UK published an article by reporter Kate Mansey. According to her article, Mansey happened to run into Raffaele, who told her about the evening of the first and the morning of the 2nd, when Meredith was found murdered.

According to this version of events from Raffaele, he and Amanda went to a party on the evening of November 1st:

Raffaele had spent the night at his own house on the other side of the city with his girlfriend, Meredith’s American flatmate Amanda Knox, 22. He said: “It was a normal night. Meredith had gone out with one of her English friends and Amanda and I went to party with one of my friends.”The next day, around lunchtime, Amanda went back to their apartment to have a shower.”

It is not known if the perugia police were aware of Mansey’s article and Raffaele’s stateements in it; but this version of Rafaelle and Amanda’s actions on November 1 clearly contradicted with whatt Raffaele had already been telling them. The Italian Police may have been watching international reports, like the Italian press was. In fact, the “foxy knoxy” reporting started in the UK; this was not the Italian media attaking Amanda, but the Italian media were reporting on what had been published in the UK media. The UK tabliods found Amanda’s MySpace profile and published headlines about “Foxy knoxy” in the first few days after the murder.

On day three of the investigation, Raffaele had already been into the station and given a witness statement on Nov 2nd.  In that statement to the police, Raffaele said that he and Amanda walked into town on the evening of the 1st before returning back to his house, something not mentioned in Mansey’s article.

On November 5th, day four of the investigation, the police call in Raffaele to the station to answer some further questions, where he will give his third version of what he and Amanda did the night of Nov 1st.

Rudy Guede

On Sunday October 21st, Rudy Guede stopped by to visit the guys who lived downstairs from Amanda and Meredith to watch the Formula 1 Grand Prix . Rudy Guede was born in the Ivory Coast but brought to Italy as a child by his father. In his late teens, Guede’s father returned to the Ivory Coast, and Guede was fostered by an Italian family he had become friends with. In the summer of 2007 he lost a job he had as a gardener at a restaurant. However, he still had a place in Perugia that he lived in which was very close to where Raffaele Sollecito lived. Though he is described as a “man”,  Guede was very close in age to Amanda and Raffaele; Guede is six months older than Amanda and two years younger than Raffaele. Guede was very interested in basketball, and liked to hang out at the court by the University for Foreigners, a few dozen feet from the house where Meredith and Amanda lived. Guede first met Marco, who lived downstairs from Amanda and Meredith, in 2006 at the basketball court, and played there frequently with Marco and Giacomo.

One day early in October,  Amanda and Meredith were in town with Giacomo and Marco, where they ran into Guede. They all went back to Marco and Giacomo’s. After they got there, Amanda and Meredith went upstairs briefly before joining them downstairs. During this time, Guede joked with Marco and Giacomo about having sex with Amanda before she came downstairs. When she walked in, they stopped laughing but wouldn’t tell Amanda what they were laughing about. They all hung out and smoked pot, with Guede later reflecting that  “for the entire evening [Amanda] had a joint in her mouth, and she was smoking and smoking”

Guede claims he first met Amanda at Le Chic, and knew her well enough by late October to know recognize her on the street in town and know where she worked. Just the night before, the Saturday night whe most everyone in the house was at the Red Zone night club, Guede had come around looking for everyone and sought out Amanda at Le Chic.  He had seen Meredith at the Shamrock earlier Saturday evening during the Rugby World cup. He didn’t find anyone, and spoke to the guys about this on Sunday night when he stopped by for the Grand Prix.

Guede wrote a “diary” of sorts after he was arrested in Germany after the murder, prior to being extradited back to Italy.  In his diary he describes his meetings with Amanda and Meredith:

In the days to come I saw Amanda and Meredith around town. We said “hi” and that was it. Then one day, the guys invited me to eat out. It would have been all the guys from the other night, but I was late. I went to their house, but no one was there. So then I went to “Le Chic” to ask about Amanda, maybe she knew where they went, but she wasn’t there. So then I figured that she was with the guys, going out with the others. Meanwhile I went with my usual friends, hanging around in the center of town. It was Saturday that evening. The next day, Sunday, I went to the guys’ house and found them. I told them I‘d tried, but couldn’t find them the day before, that I‘d gotten to their house late, etc., etc., then that I hadn’t seen them in the town center, and that I’d gone to Le Chic to ask about them and Amanda, but not even she was there. And they told me that they’d gone after dinner to “The Red Zone.” Then we spoke a lot about what happened to the guys at “The Red Zone.” But this is their own business that has to do with them…

I met [Amanda] once at “Le Chic,” not knowing it belonged to Patrick. I had gone there once because I had been given a flier with the name of the club…It was inside the club where I met Amanda. I remember very well that she approached me with a smile stamped on her face. That evening I was by myself. I began to talk with her “How are you… Where are you from,” until she told me she was from Seattle…

It was the first time that I met Amanda and after that, I ran into her many times, but it was always “hi” and “bye” each going our own way. I didn’t strike up a relationship (with her).

Guede describes the night he met everyone in town and went back to their house and smoked pot with the guys downstairs:

… in front of the “Shamrock,” we met the two Italian guys with whom I often played Basketball on the small court of Piazza Grimana. It was these guys, with their friends, who approached me. That night I was a bit high/tipsy, but conscious and talking. By then it was time to return home, but talking with these guys, I lost sight of my usual friends and stayed with them.

That is to say, I knew them and I decided to stay with them. At that point, a girl approached us and started to chat us up. I asked where she was from, where she came from, etc, etc. She told me her name was Amanda, and she was from Seattle. Then and there I hadn’t recognized her and I told her that I’d met a girl from Seattle, around before. And she said that she was that girl, at which point, I made the connection of having already seen her. Then we talked, me, the guys, Amanda, while we were going home. Having arrived near Piazza Grimana, I said bye to the guys, but they convinced me to come with them to their house. It didn’t take much to convince me.

Amanda sat down and she too, began to smoke. Then and there, I knew she smoked a lot because the guys told me so, and I saw it with my own eyes. For the entire evening she had a joint in her mouth, and she was smoking and smoking.

A week after this, Guede is discovered in Milan sleeping in a Kindergarten. Police are called, and discover him with a laptop reported to have been stolen from a Lawyers office in Perugia. Guede claims he bought the laptop at a market, and that someone had directed him to the Kindergarten as a place he could sleep overnight.

A night at the Red Zone

On October 20, 2007, England played Australia in the rugby world cup final in Paris. Meredith was watching the match with her British friends in a pub. Helen, one of her friends, recalls that evening:

One of my favourite moments occurred on Saturday, 20 October, which was on the nigh of the rugby World Cup final. We all went to a bar called Shamrocks to watch the game, and, despite England losing miserably to South Africa, Meredith did her best to keep our spirits up. She entered into some friendly banter with the guys in front of us, and every time South Africa scored, she would come out with a witty one-liner. Much hilarity ensued. (1)

Also present in the pub was Rudy Guede, who lived nearby and recalled seeing Meredith that evening.

Later that night after the match, Meredith, one of her British friends, and Amanda all go to the Red Zone night club just outside of Perugia along with boys who lived downstairs, Marco and Giacomo. A DJ from New York, Quentin Harris, was spinning that night. He has appeared frequently at the Red Zone, stating it his “favorite club to play.” In Amanda’s view:

Red zone took up an entire warehouse. It was the largest, most over-the-top dance club I’d ever been to… we were listening to the music and laughing, getting up to dance every now and then. It must have been 102 degrees, and I was sweating, dripping. (2)

While they were at the club, Rudy Guede stopped by their house to visit, but found nobody at home. Guede had recently received an invitation from the boys downstairs for dinner. When he didn’t find anyone at home this evening, he went looking in town for anyone. When he didn’t see anyone at the basketball court, he stopped by Le Chic to ask Amanda were everyone was, but Amanda was not at work.  The next night, Sunday, Guede stopped by the boy’s place downstairs for the Formula 1 Grand Prix, and he found out from Giacomo that everyone had been at the Red Zone. (3)

Guede was not a stranger nor a “drifter,” as he had an apartment nearby. Guede first met Marco a year prior, and they played basketball the court near the house along with  Giacomo. In late September 2007, the Giacomo and Marco had been in the town center with Amanda and Meredith and ran into Guede, and everyone went back to their place downstairs. Giacomo recalls that Guede expressed an interest in Amanda and asked if she was seeing someone. On that occasion in September, Guede ended up falling asleep on the toilet, but then moved to the couch and slept there. (4)

At the Red Zone Meredith and Giacomo began their relationship. Meredith had not been with anyone in Italy up to this point.  Amanda also connected with someone this evening who she calls “Bobby,” who stays with her in her room upstairs:

This was the first time I’d invited a guy into my bed since I arrived in Perugia. We went to my room and had sex. then we both passed out.  (5)

DJ Quentin Harris mixes it up at the Red Zone on that evening:

 

1: Meredith, by John Kercher

2: Waiting to be Heard, Amanda Knox

3: Prison Diary, Rudy Guede

4 Testimony, Marco Marzan

5: Waiting to be Heard, Amanda Knox

5 Guede’s Diary in Germany, Late November 2007

Florence appeal proceedings

 

A visit to Perugia, Pt. 2

Universita per Stranieri di Perugia and the road leading up to the apartments of Sollecito also Guede

Perugia was the final stop on a trip I took to several sites in central Italy. The last time I was in the country was several years prior, long enough ago that I haven’t had to understand spoken Italian and had some difficulty understanding what people were saying. When I first landed in Rome I had difficulty making out almost anything, but over the week and a half before I got to Perugia it started coming back to me and I was able to get around, order, understand the train announcements, and get the sense of what people were saying.

 

When I was in Rome I looked for books on the case, thinking that it wouldn’t be difficult to do and there may be some local books I wasn’t aware of. I stopped by a bookstore and asked a store assistant, giving the names of the people in the case and asking about “caso meredith,” the label given in the newspaper headlines every time there was an update. The first staff person I asked had little recognition when I said the names of the defendants and the victim, even when I wrote them down. We went to a second assistant at the checkout who recognized the names, but could not recall any specific books. The first assistant checked in the system and found one book (I think I recall it being Raffaele’s), but we couldn’t find it in the store.

In the US, due to the media cheerleading for Knox, there is at least some name recognition when you mention her name (though most people would look at you blankly if you said “Meredith Kercher”). In bookstores they definitely would be able to know the case, if not be able to recall specific books. And this was even before the current phase of popularity for true crime, due in part to the successes of the podcasts Serial and My Favorite Murder.

Guede declares his innocence

Unfortunately I did not find any books while I was traveling in Italy. The only media I encountered on the case was a brief mention of Rudy Guede in a magazine I was reading while in a cafe in Perugia,  where Guede declared his innocence. Despite the lack of media I was still able to understand a bit of the Italian perspective while visiting Perugia.

 

I spoke to a shop clerk in Perugia about the case. After asking about some unrelated books, we started speaking in English and I asked if I could ask a few questions. I said I was visiting the town, since I had been following the case for years. I asked about the Netflix documentary, which had been released three months prior.  The clerk was unaware that the documentary had come out, but recalled when some filmmakers came to town a few years prior saying they were going to do a movie on the media reporting around the case; the clerk was surprised that the movie focused on Knox.

Signs for security cameras in town

Even nine years later, I saw the difficulty and pain the case had on the clerk and the town. The clerk spoke of the negative media attacks on Perugia that were published internationally. The negative media publicity changed the town, and they felt this every time the media came to town to report on the trial and the case.

 

In my conversation it was clear to me that in Perugia, this isn’t a trial about Amanda Knox. Perugia remembers the death of Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student who was brutally murdered in a house she shared with three other girls.  Perugia remembers the death, but they also feel the judgment of the international media on their city. The city is still recovering from both.

 

Perugia, just north of Piazza IV Novembre

 

 

 

Perugia Eurochocolate Festival

 

 

Yesterday, the annual Eurochocolate festival began in Perugia. The festival started in 1994, and occurs in the historic city center of Perugia, a very short walk from the house where the girls lived. It includes carvings out of chocolate and entertainment by local bands. According to Knox, she and Meredith went to this festival together one day:

Another afternoon, I returned to the festival with Meredith. I flipped the video switch on my camera and acted like a TV journalist. “Tell me, Meredith, what do you thing about being here at the Eurochoclate Festival. Meredith laughed and said, “no, no, don’t film me”.

The Netflix “documentary” apparently includes a snippet of this recording. The “Amanda Knox” filmmakers have stated that when they were given access to the case file, they came across a media card that still had items on it, so its likely this is how the footage got included in the film.

Meredith’s father also writes of Meredith attending the festival:

Meredith Kercher in Piazza IV Novembre, Perugia

“[Meredith] was particularly enthusiastic about the nine-day Eurochocolate Festival, due to be held in October in the center of the city. Apparently it would stretch from Rocca Paolina to the Carducci Gardens, Piazza della Repubblica and Piazza IV Novembre. Later, after she had visited it, she told me that the vestival had been wonderful, with dozens of diferent chocolate stalls and incredible choclate sculptures that, towards the end of the festival, were broken up and pieces given to the public. She said that she brought me some of my favorites, which she would give to me when she returned home in November for ther mother’s birthday.

All of the photos and videos in this post are found on the internet and are from the festival in 2007.

The festival in 2007 included a playstation controller scupted in chocolate

 

 

The Netflix film also includes footage of a “funk” band that appeared in 2007, that Meredith and Amanda may have watched. Here’s a longer clip of that band from 2007, although this is from a different part of the city center. The recording in the film was taken in Piazza IV Novembre, while the clip below is from Piazza Della Repubblica:

Another clip of the band walking through the street, likely taken the same day as the clip in the Netflix documentary, judging by the red sweatshirt one player is wearing and the red sleeves of another player.

 

The festival also included live sculpting of a block of chocolate; in Waiting to be Heard, Amanda writes:

Laura told me about the chocolate sculpture carving. It was done in the early mornings, so the next day I went to Piazza IV Novembre to watch. The artists started with a refrigerator size block of chocolate. As the chiseled pieces flew, assistants gathered chips and shavings into small plastic bags and threw them to the rowdy crowd.

Meredith never got to deliver the chocolate to her mother. Rest in peace, Meredith.