A Death in Italy: The Definitive Account of the Amanda Knox Case Read online

  She was really tired, she said, because she’d been out for Halloween and had got back very late. She was going to a friend’s house to watch a film in the afternoon but would come back early because she had an essay to finish and a lecture at ten o’clock the next morning.

  Meredith arrived at Amy and Robyn’s flat – a little late as usual – around 4.30 p.m. She wore a pair of very faded and very worn jeans that an ex-boyfriend had bought her in England. She also wore a light blue, striped zip-up Adidas sweatshirt which she took off as she came in because she was too hot, and a sleeveless beige cotton top over a long-sleeved T-shirt, also beige.

  Meredith had a huge smile on her face. ‘I’ve found my first grey hair! It’s a mother’s blessing,’ she announced delightedly as she walked in.

  She told her friends that her Dad had told her that’s what people call the first grey hair – ‘a mother’s blessing’. She was thrilled because it made her feel close to Arline.

  While Amy and Robyn made pizza – with a rich topping of ham, tomato, tuna, aubergines, peppers, Gorgonzola and other kinds of cheeses – Meredith and Sophie used a laptop to look at photographs they’d taken during Halloween and posted on their Facebook pages. They talked about the wonderful time they were having in Perugia, and gossiped about men. Meredith showed Sophie a photograph of an ex-boyfriend of hers. They also chatted about Patrick’s repeated requests to Meredith to go to his bar. But Meredith preferred the Merlin and hadn’t been back to Le Chic.

  The girls put on a DVD of The Notebook, a romantic drama by Nick Cassavetes, and started eating some time after 5.30 p.m., picking at cherry-sized mozzarella balls before tackling the pizza. They stopped the film while they put an apple crumble Robyn had made in the oven, finishing the meal at about 8 – 8.30 p.m.

  ‘I’m tired, I’m going to go now,’ Sophie said. She wanted to get home before 9 p.m. in time to watch the MTV Europe Music Awards that night.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Meredith said; she was tired too.

  Meredith borrowed an Italian history book from Robyn and the two arranged to meet for a class the next morning at 10 a.m. As they said goodbye, Meredith and Sophie thanked Amy and Robyn for the evening.

  ‘I wish you didn’t have to go. I wish we could all live together!’ Robyn said.

  ‘Yes, that would be really good!’ Meredith exclaimed.

  As she walked out the door, Meredith said to Robyn: ‘See you tomorrow at ten!’ Meredith then pretended to shut the door, before opening it again suddenly and adding with a giggle: ‘Not really. Half ten!’ – a reference to her constant tardiness.

  At about 8.40 p.m., Meredith and Sophie walked out into the night. Meredith carried her beige imitation-leather shoulder bag, in which she’d put the book Robyn had just lent her. It was very cold and windy, and the streets were deserted; the only sounds were those of the wind and of their footsteps as they walked down Via Bontempi.

  Sophie asked her friend: ‘When is Giacomo back?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Meredith said.

  ‘How’s it going with him?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘He’s not my type looks-wise, but there’s something really nice about him. He’s quite shy compared to the other boys but he’s always really sweet,’ Meredith replied. She said she was in two minds about Giacomo; she liked him very much but she wasn’t sure she wanted things to become serious because she would be leaving Italy in a year’s time. Plus he lived downstairs from her, and she didn’t want anything awkward. They walked under the graceful Arch of Lilies – in Etruscan times one of Perugia’s five main gates – and on down the steps that wound down the hillside, stopping briefly on the corner of Via del Lupo, a rundown dead end where Sophie lived and where they had once seen two men smoking heroin.

  Sophie suggested they go out the next evening, a Friday.

  ‘Yes, I’ll text you,’ Meredith said as they hugged each other goodbye. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  As she walked into her flat, Sophie switched the TV on in her kitchen; five minutes later, at 9 p.m., the MTV Awards ceremony started.

  Meredith walked on alone down the dark, steep street, towards the cottage some five minutes away, the cold northern tramontana wind sweeping up from the valley towards her.

  8

  Nara Capezzali, a short, stout widow in her late sixties with a mass of big brown curls, went to bed at 9.30 p.m. For the past twenty years she’d lived in her east-facing, first-floor flat just opposite the cottage. From her window, Capezzali could see Via della Pergola and the cottage roof and part of the terrace. It was some seventy yards away, on the other side of a car park.

  Her flat was a noisy one and she was often woken up by people talking in loud voices below her window as they walked back to their cars after an evening out, or by rowdy students joking and laughing together. Sometimes, even – the neighbourhood wasn’t what it used to be – she could hear people shouting after pickpockets, or drug addicts squabbling when they couldn’t get a fix. She often saw used needles on the ground outside her window. And as if that wasn’t enough, people going up and down the iron staircase to the car park made an awful racket, especially at night, their shoes clanging loudly on the metal steps.

  Widowed only that summer, Capezzali felt so lonely at night that her daughter Sabrina, who also lived in the flat, slept with her in what used to be the marital bed; sleeping alone in it reminded Capezzali too much of her loss.

  Before going to bed Capezzali took her usual pills – since her husband, a schoolteacher, died she suffered from swollen feet and they helped her bladder – and watched TV in the bedroom for a short while. But the programmes were all boring, so she turned it off and fell asleep.

  She slept for two hours or a little more – she wasn’t sure precisely how long but she always got up anyway after a couple of hours because that was when the pills took effect – and walked towards the bathroom. As she passed the large window in the dining room which gave out onto her terrace, she said later: ‘I heard a scream … such a scream … an agonising scream which gave me gooseflesh.’ The scream went on for a long time and she heard it very clearly.

  It was a woman’s scream, and she thought it came from the cottage. Startled and confused, Capezzali went into the bathroom and it was only there that she looked outside. She looked out over the tiny cactus plants she kept on the ledge of the small bathroom window; she could see part of the car park and the iron staircase to her right. There was no one to be seen.

  ‘Two seconds, maybe a minute’ after the scream, she walked out of the bathroom and as she closed the door behind her, she heard the sound of someone running on the iron staircase. Almost at the same time, she heard a ‘scurrying’ sound, as if someone was running along the cottage’s drive of stones and dry leaves, towards Piazza Grimana and the university.

  Capezzali looked out again, but still couldn’t see anyone. Then the night was quiet once more.

  She went back to bed. Her daughter Sabrina was sleeping soundly. That didn’t surprise Capezzali; Sabrina always slept like a log. ‘Even if you were to lift her up and carry her away, I don’t think she’d hear anything, she’s such a heavy sleeper!’ she said later. Besides, the bedroom was at the opposite end of the flat from the dining room, away from the cottage.

  Capezzali lay awake for some time, still shocked by what she’d heard. She tried to work out what the scream could have been. Perhaps someone had tried to rape a girl. Or perhaps it had just been another student prank. She got up again to make herself a camomile tea to soothe her nerves then went back to bed. She had become used to sleeping in fits and starts; she usually got up two or three times a night and thought often of her late husband.

  But that night, Capezzali kept hearing the scream in her head, over and over again. ‘What with the scream and the wind blowing, I had the impression I was in a house of horrors,’ she said later.

  Antonella Monacchia, a primary schoolteacher, lived in a street parallel to Capezzali’s and just a few yards further up the hill
side. The bedroom window of her fifth-floor flat gave out on the car park and the cottage. That summer, she’d called the police because a loud party at the cottage was still making a racket at 3 a.m., stopping her sleeping.

  On 1 November, Monacchia went to bed at 10 p.m.; she remembered the precise time because she looked at her watch. She fell asleep but was woken up some time later – she guessed it was about 11 p.m. – by the loud voices of a man and a woman speaking in great agitation. They were talking Italian, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. The voices became louder and she then heard a very loud scream, a woman’s scream. Alarmed, she opened the window and looked outside but she saw no one. She looked at the cottage and thought the sounds had come from there. But everything was dark and she closed the window again.

  Still worried, Monacchia walked down to her elderly parents’ bedroom on the floor below. They were sleeping but Monacchia woke them up and told them what she’d heard. They’d heard nothing – but they slept in another part of the flat and their window gave out on an alley. Monacchia went back to bed and fell asleep.

  Part 2

  Investigation

  9

  2 November 2007 – Festa dei Morti (Feast of the Dead)

  Meredith failed to turn up for the 10 a.m. class but Robyn wasn’t worried – Meredith was always late and in any case she’d just arrived to find the class was cancelled because of a holiday. Today was the Festa dei Morti, when many Italians traditionally went to put flowers on the tombs of their lost ones. Robyn stayed and waited a bit for her friend.

  Robyn tried to call her on her mobile but the phone just rang and rang. She assumed Meredith was sleeping. At a loose end, Robyn went for a walk in the city centre and bought some books. She kept trying Meredith’s phone, and sent her several text messages; at first the phone just rang, then there was a message that the person she was calling couldn’t be reached.

  Robyn needed the history book she’d lent Meredith the previous evening, because she had to prepare for an exam in a few days’ time. But Robyn got no reply to her texts and her messages became more and more insistent.

  ‘Where are you? Can you bring the book back to me? I need it. Are you awake?’

  While Robyn was trying to reach Meredith, Elisabetta Lana, who lives in a large, isolated villa on Via Sperandio some 400 yards from the cottage, was in the offices of the postal police – who specialise in tackling crime involving the Internet and communication technology in general – reporting two bizarre events. The previous evening, she’d received a worrying phone call. ‘Careful, don’t use the toilet, don’t wee in the toilet because there’s a bomb inside,’ the anonymous caller, a man, had said. Lana thought it might be a trick by a burglar who wanted to get her out of the house so he could break in. Then, that morning, Lana’s son had found a Motorola mobile phone in the garden; she handed it to the police.

  After she’d finished with the police, Lana left and went to do some shopping. She was still out when her daughter called her from the villa. At about 11.45 a.m. – 12 p.m., Lana’s daughter had found a second mobile phone, this time a Sony Ericsson, close to where the first one had been discovered. It was hidden in some bushes, and she would never have found it if it hadn’t started ringing. It rang again when she brought it into the house. A name appeared on the display screen as it rang: ‘Amanda’.

  Lana took the second phone to the police who were able to trace the Motorola phone to Filomena Romanelli and sent two officers to the cottage.

  Sophie got up early that morning and didn’t bother to get washed or dressed. She was behind in her studies and decided now was the time to catch up, as it was a holiday and she had no classes.

  About midday, as she sat in her pyjamas working on her chemistry lecture notes at her laptop, a ‘ping’ sound from the Windows Live Messenger service she was logged onto told her that Robyn wanted a chat.

  ‘Meredith didn’t turn up, have you heard from her?’ read Robyn’s message.

  God, I hope she’s OK, I hope nothing’s happened to Meredith, Sophie thought. But then she told herself nothing could have happened to her and so she just replied that no, she hadn’t heard from her.

  ‘It’s OK, I’m going to a shop and then I’ll go round to her flat on my way back,’ Robyn typed back.

  ‘I’ll let you know if I hear anything,’ Sophie replied. Then she got back to her work.

  At 12.08 p.m., Filomena and her friend Paola Grande, a feisty character who came from southern Calabria like her, were driving to the Fair of the Dead market festival outside the city when Filomena’s mobile rang. Filomena answered and drove on as she listened.

  ‘Ciao, there’s something strange in the house,’ Amanda said.

  ‘Ciao Amanda. What happened? What do you mean?’ Filomena asked in her slightly husky voice.

  ‘I slept at Raffaele’s. This morning I went to the house and I found the front door open, and blood in my bathroom. I took a shower but I’m scared, I don’t know what to do.’

  Filomena blanched. ‘Where’s Meredith?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe Meredith hurt herself, maybe she cut herself. Amanda, go round the house and make sure everything is all right,’ Filomena said. She told Amanda to call the police.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Paola asked as soon as the call was finished. ‘You looked very strange.’

  Filomena told her friend what Amanda had said. The girl was ‘the most cretina [stupid] of them all’. How could she calmly have a shower after finding the door open and blood in the bathroom? It made no sense. She told Paola that Laura had gone away for a long weekend, so Amanda and Meredith were alone in the cottage.

  ‘Perhaps Meredith did cut herself,’ Paola suggested. ‘She went to the bathroom, and some blood fell on the floor. Maybe she didn’t manage to stop the bleeding so she went out and left the door open. Maybe she’s at the chemist’s. Call her.’

  Filomena parked the car and as she and Paola walked towards the stalls of the fair she tried Meredith first on her Italian mobile and then on her English one; she got a ringing tone on both of them, but no answer.

  ‘Maybe she’s sleeping,’ Filomena said.

  Filomena called Amanda once more, but there was no reply. Then she tried Meredith’s phone again, and this time she got a recording saying the person called was unavailable.

  Filomena kept trying Amanda until she got through. ‘Amanda, what happened? Do check on the house, because I’m at the fair and I can’t come straightaway. Do look around please, I’m worried there might be something wrong,’ Filomena said, speaking in both English and Italian.

  ‘OK, OK, I’ll go now and call Raffaele. I’ll check the house,’ Amanda promised.

  Filomena and Paola started to walk round the stalls. Paola tried to reassure her. ‘Come on, it’s probably nothing serious,’ she said.

  Still at the fair, an increasingly anxious Filomena called Amanda yet again, at 12.34 p.m.

  ‘Filomena, I’ve checked the house and the window of your room is broken and everything’s a big mess. We’ve had burglars. And there’s some shit in the bathroom,’ Amanda said.

  ‘Call the police now!’ Filomena burst out.

  ‘I’ll call them,’ Amanda said.

  As Filomena and Paola hurried back to the car – Filomena was so flustered it took her a while to find it – she started listing the things she thought burglars might have stolen: the laptop she had left in its case on the desk, the Versace sunglasses next to it, and the box of gold jewellery and a digital camera in unlocked drawers.

  On the way home – Filomena was so agitated she drove at a snail’s pace – she called her boyfriend Marco, told him what had happened, and asked him to rush to the cottage to help her and to bring Paola’s boyfriend, Luca Altieri, with him. Filomena still couldn’t make head or tail of Amanda’s explanations; they sounded like ‘the ravings of someone dreaming’.

  At 12.47 p.m., Amanda called Edda and Chris who were asleep in
bed in Seattle – it was nearly 4 a.m. for them. Edda answered the phone.

  ‘Mom, I’m home and I’m OK,’ her daughter said, sounding worried but not in a panic.

  Edda was instantly alert. ‘OK, what’s going on?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, something strange is going on. I think someone may have been in the house.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Now Edda was alarmed. She woke Chris up and put Amanda on the speakerphone.

  Amanda told them how she’d found the front door open with blood in the small bathroom and excrement in the bigger one. She’d gone to fetch Raffaele and when they got back to the cottage she saw that the toilet had been flushed. She had managed to get hold of Filomena – but not Meredith.

  ‘I can’t get hold of Meredith. Meredith’s door is locked. We tried to pound on the door to wake her and she’s not answering,’ Amanda said.

  When Amanda said the toilet had been flushed, Edda thought immediately that someone might have been in the house when Amanda was having her shower. But she didn’t say that to her daughter; she didn’t want to worry her. ‘Hang up and call the police,’ Edda told her.

  Chris butted in. ‘Amanda, get the hell out of that house, something’s not right. Call the police,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know how,’ Amanda said weakly.