Amanda Knox.
It seems that 14 years after her (first) wrongful murder conviction in Italy,Amanda Knoxcan laugh about the ordeal that kept her in an Italian prison for nearly four years.
In response to a controversial, viralarticle in Insider— titled “I’m an NYU student who studied abroad in Florence. I hated every aspect of my semester abroad” —Knox, 35, tweeted: “Girl, what are you talking about? Studying abroad is awesome!”
Her humorous tweet caught the attention of many, including Merriam-Webster, whoresponded with the definition of “spit take.”
When Knox was 20 years old, she was studying abroad in Italy and living with three women in an Italian villa. While there, she met Raffaele Sollecito, who became her boyfriend at the time. On Nov. 2, 2007, one of her roommates — 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, who was a British student studying abroad — was found brutally stabbed to death in her bedroom.
In December of that year, 20-year-old drifter Rudy Guede was apprehended in connection with Kercher’s murder and sexual assault. According toCNN, Guede admitted to having sex with Kercher but denied killing her.
Guede, Knox and Sollecito were all convicted, and Knox wassentenced to 26 years in prison.
Raffaele Sollecito, Amanda Knox.X17online, INF
According toBBC News, the trial relied heavily on the prosecutors' claims that on the evening Kercher was killed, Knox, Sollecito and Guede all arrived at the home together, and while Guede went to the bathroom, Knox and Sollecito went into Kercher’s bedroom where an “argument and a scuffle broke out” after Kercher “refused to take part in a drug-fueled sex game.”
Prosecutors then claimed that Guede entered the room and sexually assaulted Kercher, then Guede and Sollecito held Kercher down as Knox stabbed her to death, BBC News reports.
Throughout the sensational trial and the appeals process that followed, Knox always claimed she and Sollecito were innocent. In October 2011, Knox and Sollecito’s murder convictions were overturned,CNN reports, and they were released from prison. Knox returned to the United States, but her legal troubles didn’t end there.
In September 2013, Knox and Sollecito were retried for the murder — continuously maintaining their innocence — and in January 2014, they were both convicted again. Finally, in March 2015, the convictions were once again overturned and thecase was officially closedafter a lengthy eight-year-long legal battle.
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Guede served 13 yearsand was released from prison in 2021.
source: people.com
