Amanda Knox, who knew?

Note: My personal blog is on indefinite hiatus, but I am cross-posting from my newspaper blog at the Marshall Independent.

Amanda Knox is free after four years in an Italian prison and back home again.

American exchange student Knox was convicted, along with her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and Ivory Coast native Rudy Hermann Guede, of the sexual assault and murder of her room mate Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student, in 2007. Solecito was also freed, Guede remains in prison.

She was freed after an Italian appeals court found her not guilty. And to be perfectly clear, that’s “not guilty,” not a technicality, not “insufficient evidence to convict,” but NOT GUILTY.

Who knew?

Up until a few days ago I thought she was guilty as sin. Now I read that alleged DNA evidence was tainted and improperly collected (there are videos showing this,) that alleged evidence on her computer’s hard drive was destroyed by the prosecution, that damaging and contradictory statements she made were obtained during more than 50 continuous hours of questioning without a lawyer and possibly under physical duress, that the prosecutor is currently being investigated for improper actions in other unrelated cases… the list goes on.

It is now starting to seem like a pretty straightforward rape and murder committed by Hermann Guede, with no involvement by Knox or Sollecito. That in fact, that was the only conclusion warranted by the evidence from the beginning.

So where did this story of “Foxy Knoxy” the pervert sex maniac who helped assault and murder her room mate in an orgiastic frenzy come from?

Where else? The press. Both the Italian press, and unfortunately a lot of the American press as well.

The truth was, though tragic, rather boring. Sad to say, it’s the kind of thing that happens a lot in this fallen world.

Ah, but the myth was so much more exciting!

This is the kind of story all journalists should keep in the back of their mind.

Oh, but now Amanda Knox has been given another nickname by journalists speculating about possible book and movie deals. How does “Ft. Knox” sound to you?

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