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- [00:00]
Podcast Host
This is an I heart Podcast.
- [00:05]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Hosts compensated for their time I've seen a lot of tough women in my life, women who fight hard and keep showing up no matter what. And when one of them gets hit with breast cancer, it's brutal. But here's the thing. Even after treatment, breast cancer can come back. That's why I'm telling you about Kiskali. Kiskali ribociclib 200mg tablets are taken with an aromatase inhibitor. It's for adults with HR positive HER2 negative stage 2 or 3 early breast cancer with a high risk of recurrence and it can help reduce the risk of cancer coming back. If you or someone you love went through it, talk to them. Share this it may not seem helpful, but it's a real way to show up for the women you love or maybe yourself. In a clinical study at three years, 91% of people taking Kiskali plus an aromatase inhibitor were cancer free versus 88% taking an aromatase inhibitor alone. Individual results may vary. Kiskali may cause serious skin reactions, liver problems and low white blood cell counts that may result in serious infections. Life threatening lung problems and abnormal heartbeats can occur. Your doctor should test your heart and blood before and during treatment. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening cough, chest pain or dizziness before taking Kiskali. Tell your doctor all your medical conditions, medicines you take and if you're breastfeeding pregnant or planning to be as it can harm an unborn baby. Common side effects include nausea, headache and tiredness. Visit kiskali.com that's K I S Q A L I to learn more and ask your doctor if Cascali is right for you. A life that's carefree needs hair that's worry free. Have both with Mori reduce shedding and thinning in as little as 12 weeks.
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Amanda Knox
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Amanda Knox
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- [02:17]
Amanda Knox
Quiz for a custom hair care recommendation.
- [02:19]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
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- [02:24]
Amanda Knox
See website for more. Lowe's knows how to get you ready for holiday hosting with up to 35% off select home decor and get up to 35% off select major appliances. Plus members get free delivery, hallway, basic.
- [02:38]
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Amanda Knox
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- [02:55]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless, and if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons.
- [03:02]
Amanda Knox
Why you should 1.
- [03:03]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
It's $15 a month.
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Amanda Knox
2.
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Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Seriously, it's $15 a month.
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Amanda Knox
3.
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Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
No big contracts.
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Amanda Knox
4. I use it. 5.
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Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
My mom uses it. Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right?
- [03:14]
Amanda Knox
Okay, give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 per 3 month plan $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first 3 months plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint mobile.com New school year, new routines and somehow your calendar is already full when life gets hectic, Cauliflower's got your back. We make the food you crave made better for you. Like thin and crispy cauliflower crust pizzas, all natural chicken tenders and nostalgic pizza snacks. Ready in minutes in something the whole family can agree on. Caulipower is available in freezer aisles nationwide. Visit eatcaullypower.com to find a store near you BBC Studios.
- [03:59]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Before we begin, I just want to flag that this episode deals with adult themes, sexual violence, drugs, and it contains some very strong language. Hey everyone, it's Maggie. I want to welcome you to the first of two special bonus editions of Hands Tied. Before we dive in, I want to thank you all for listening to the series. Truly, it meant a lot to me that you followed along with us as we went into Sandy's case, and I really appreciated reading all of your questions and comments throughout the series. In this episode, I'm going to catch up with the Innocence Project of Texas for some new developments in Sandy's case. But first I want to share a conversation I had with Amanda Knox. Amanda, you might remember, was accused of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher in Italy. As a brief synopsis of what happened in Amanda's case in 2009 following a trial that gripped the world's media, she was found guilty and sentenced to 26 years in prison in 2011. She and her ex, who was accused of the same crime, were freed on appeal in 2014. After a retrial, she was once again convicted of murder. And then in 2015, that conviction was overturned and both Amanda and her ex boyfriend were exonerated.
- [05:34]
Amanda Knox
So I am Very close friends with the folks at the Texas Innocence Project. And I was really struck by how much Sandy's case resembles mine, which is odd because my case and her case are not your typical women's wrongful conviction cases, right? Like, it's very different than men. Like, they're accused of something happening to some loved one in their care, and they're held to blame. And the typical way that they are held to blame is that people look at the way that they acted and say, are they grieving properly? Are they giving us sort of weird, suspicious vibes by the way that they're responding emotively to the tragedy that has occurred. So that is sort of a universal response to how women get judged in the aftermath of tragedies. But what's really interesting about Sandy's case, which is similar to mine, is that she was accused of an actual crime that occurred to someone who she cared about, who she lived with. But it was a crime that was committed in all likelihood by a man who had broken into her home and assaulted her husband and her and locked her in a closet and locked him in a closet and just happened to murder him and not her.
- [06:55]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
It's pretty clear that Amanda believes Sandy is innocent, and that is, of course, her opinion, and she's entitled to it. But that's not why I wanted to talk to her. And researching Sandy's case and re familiarizing myself with Amanda's, I, too, was struck by some of the similarities that Amanda sees.
- [07:13]
Amanda Knox
I think people might famously know that when I was studying abroad in PERUSIA, Italy, At 20, someone broke into my home and raped and murdered my roommate. And I, thankfully was not present when this occurred. But I was the one who came home and found the crime scene. Me and my boyfriend called the police. And what's very similar between Sandy's case and my case is immediately, immediately when the police arrive. They assume that the break in is staged, that it's all part of a conspiracy to cover up from what really took place, which is there was some sort of domestic violence situation that resulted in murder. And even more specifically, there was some kind of sexual violence domestic violence situation that resulted in murder. So Sandy's, you know, celebrating her wedding anniversary with her husband. So, like, it's kind of a sex game. And then she murders him and gets him in the closet and somehow somehow locks herself in a closet while being bound to such a degree that she has to be cut free. Similarly, in my case, you know, the prosecution took one look at my house and said, there's no way that a burglar actually broke in, the way that the burglar actually broke in. So there must be some kind of someone in the house is covering up for the crime. And they almost immediately fell upon me as being the foreigner, the youngest person in the house, the person who called the police, and the person who they assumed was reacting in not the way that you would expect an innocent person to react. So in Sandy's case, they're looking at her behavior, they're questioning her in the aftermath, and she's apparently making some inconsistent statements. And then, of course, they're also looking at her behavior. They look at you and they go, are you making eye contact? Are you avoiding eye contact? Does it seem like you want to be there? Are you really crying or are you fake crying? Like, there's all of these sort of subjective interpretations of Sandy's behavior where they are viewing her from a lens of guilt. They have a gut feeling that she's guilty, and that then they're viewing her in, like, her responses to their questions in light of this view. Very similar thing in my case. You know, I'm in a foreign country, so I'm having to speak a foreign language while I'm being interrogated. And there's some inconsistencies to my statements. I think one because of just language difficulties. Like, I'm trying to explain a thing with a language that I'm not familiar with. And so there's some fumbling along the way. But also, like, one thing that I did lie about very early on was the fact that everyone in the house smoked marijuana. And I was very afraid. In fact, I was told by my roommates, do not tell the police that we smoke marijuana because we'll get into trouble. So I lied about that. And they used that as a kind of way to say, well, if she's lying about that, what else is she lying about? And then it unfolds the way it does. So viewing young women or women in general in a moment of existential crisis and stress and interpreting their behavior with a guilt presumptive lens, weirdly similar in these cases. Because, like, how often is a woman accused of orchestrating a death orgy, a sex crime, and covering it up by making it look like a break in, when in fact an actual break, like, that's where Sandy and my case are very, very similar and connected.
- [11:01]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Yeah, I think that the assumption is something that I really want to dial into because in her interrogation video, even the first time I watched it, you kind of can't help but have these Assumptions of how you expect someone to act right after, you know, seeing that your husband's died, to being interrogated. But then, you know, you have to remember it's late at night. She has medical histories.
- [11:25]
Amanda Knox
Right?
- [11:25]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
And, like, these assumptions that we have, just like you said, of how we expect women primarily to act in moments of trauma.
- [11:33]
Amanda Knox
Well, I'm not saying that investigators are just trying to frame innocent people. In fact, I do not think that that's what happened necessarily in Sandy's case or in my own case. It's just that police officers are trained to have confidence in their gut judgments of people. But the unfortunate reality is that they are human beings. They are capable, making mistakes in their judgment. But once you have that cognitive bias in place, you are going to interpret really subjective things, like subtle things of behavior, like, is she making eye contact with me or not? Is she looking to the left or not when she's speaking? Like, maybe, you know, in her case, she's looking to the left because she's struggling to remember or because she's had a head injury. Like, and in my case, maybe I'm looking this way or that way because I'm trying to remember what word it is in Italian that I'm trying to say, you know, so, like, there's. There's so many innocent explanations for a person's behavior. And I find it really obnoxious when, because you have assumed guilt, you just find fault in the person that you have accused. And that's especially tragic in a case where we were victims of crime before we became victims of the criminal justice system. Right. Like, what an utter betrayal. It's just a continued trauma on top of a trauma.
- [13:01]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
How much do you think those first couple hours in the police interrogation set the stain for the rest of your trial and examination from the Italian prosecutors?
- [13:13]
Amanda Knox
Well, unlike Sandy, I was actually questioned for a lot longer. So I was questioned for around 53 hours over five days. And we've had to sort of figure out that because none of my actual questionings were videotaped or recorded, because the police claimed that they were never interrogating me. They were only interviewing me as a witness, which is really frustrating. But anyway, so I was around 10 hours of day with them in their custody, answering questions, sharing information, going over what I found when I came home to the crime scene, all of that. And I was told from the very beginning that I was their most important witness. I was the one roommate who lived with Meredith, my roommate who was murdered, who was around her age, who knew her comings and Goings who knew her friendships. So, like, it made sense to me that I was spending so much time with the police to help them solve this crime, but at no point was I ever informed that I was a suspect. I was never given my Miranda rights or the Italian equivalent of them. What ultimately transpired was the police accusing me of lying, accusing me of covering up for the actual murderer, gaslighting me, lying to me, telling me that I had actually witnessed the crime, but I couldn't remember it because it was so traumatizing and ultimately sort of feeding me this idea that my boss, who had texted me the night of the murder, was actually the murderer and I was covering for him. And so I eventually was coerced under duress to believing them and signing statements to that effect. And I am convinced that I never, ever would have been arrested, imprisoned, put on trial, and convicted were it not for that interrogation. There was simply no evidence that I had anything to do with this crime. The only evidence that the police ever were able to, you know, put out there in regards to me was that I lived in the house where Meredith was murdered. And everything else was unreliable, speculative, all of that. And, you know, like, no motive. In Sandy's case. No motive. They say that she's trying to escape an unhappy marriage. In my case, they say, oh, I basically was trying to escape an unhappy roommate ship. You know, like, and it's just, where's the evidence? Where, you know, where's the evidence of that conflict? They had just been celebrating. They were just in the hot tub together. So I think that before they can get the answers from the forensic evidence, instead, they're going to hyper focus on people's behavior. And if they have a cognitive bias to the effect of assuming the guilt of a certain person, they're going to see what they want to see. And in my case, they saw what they wanted to see, and they put me through an interrogation to get the statement that they wanted to get. End of story.
- [16:08]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
And, you know, there's something moving on to the trial that you wrote in your book, which I think connects directly to Sandy's case. And indulge me. I'm going to read it to you.
- [16:18]
Amanda Knox
Okay.
- [16:21]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
So often our courtrooms are not like laboratories where competing information is boiled down to truth beyond a reasonable doubt, but more like battlegrounds where the most compelling story, not the most truthful wins. And I think Sandy's case, to a lot of the jurors, you know, I spoke with one of the jurors, and to him, the prosecution had a better Story, it made more sense. They were able to show a theory of how the prosecution believed that Sandy would be able to tie her hands to lock herself in the closet. And to him, he felt like the defense didn't have that strong of a story. So I'd love to kind of just hear your reactions to that and how story is such a big thing when it comes to trials and murder.
- [17:06]
Amanda Knox
Yeah. I look at the prosecution story in Sandy's case and I go, well, that's a much more interesting story. Compelling in the sense that it's way more interesting. The idea that a woman orchestrated this, like, sex game murder of her husband and then very cunningly tied herself up and locked herself in a closet, that's interesting. But does it make sense? I don't think so. I think that what's interesting about that for me is I look at what might be the psychology of a juror who might connect the idea that an interesting story means that it makes more sense. Like, for some reason, it's a sticky story, a story that stays in our head. But does that mean that it actually makes sense? That's where the disconnect for me happens, because I think it makes a lot more sense in both Sandy's and my case to just, you know, Occam's razor, this thing, and go, it looks like a break in, it smells like a break in. It talks like a break in. It's a break in. Like someone broke into the house and murdered somebody and took advantage of a situation, like a vulnerable situation. So they said that in my case, you know, that the window that the burglar broke into, he couldn't physically actually break into it when he has a history of breaking into second story windows. They say that nothing was stolen from the house. Well, what do you mean nothing was stolen from the house? Like, Meredith's money was gone, her keys were gone, her phones were gone. They were stolen. But because you have reinterpreted the facts of the case to be, oh, well, that was just part of the staged break in. Now you are just reinterpreting actual facts and saying that they aren't what they appear to be. So, again, I find it incredibly frustrating when. And I feel so horribly for Sandy, and I wonder if this is the reason why I am free today and she is not. Is that DNA evidence was found at the crime scene that the prosecution was not intending to find. It was sort of inevitably found because my roommate was sexually assaulted and viciously attacked, and the murderer left copious quantities of his DNA all over the Crime scene, on her body, in her belongings. His footprints and fingerprints were left in her blood. It was. It was very bad. But also, it was inevitable that they were going to discover this person, whether they intended to or not, that he was involved in the crime. And I think the twist with my story is even though they found that evidence of the intruder, they just decided to reinterpret that evidence of the intruder as, oh, well, it's not really a break in. He, yes, he has a history of breaking and entering, but in this case, he was let into the house by Amanda and just happened to be there to commit the crime with her. Like, that's the level of, like, twisting that the prosecution has to do to make sense of their theory. In Sandy's case, there was unknown DNA found at the crime scene, but it remains unknown. And as jurors, as people in society, we do not like. We do not like cases to be unsolved. And so if we have a person who's put in front of us to take the responsibility for a crime and the police are telling us this is the person we want to believe that the police are not just gonna put an innocent person, just a random innocent person in front of us. Where there's smoke, there must be fire. And therefore, I think we too, are inclined to be guilt presumptive, even in a situation where technically we are supposed to be hearing the various stories coming at with truth beyond a reasonable doubt at the core of our reasoning. But I think that that is a lot to request of human beings who want to find closure. We are instinctively drawn towards closure and wanting some kind of finality and sense that the universe makes sense that somebody just couldn't be randomly assaulted and murder.
- [21:13]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
So we're just gonna take a quick break, and then I'll be back with Amanda Knox when she talks. Pixie Girls and Prison Hustles, amongst other things.
- [21:26]
Podcast Host
Host compensated for their time. I used to play team sports and shared a locker room with a whole lot of women, plus 14 roommates in one college house. I still text, call, or see so many of those women regularly. We talk about everything, even breast cancer, which has affected several of my friends. Breast cancer has impacted all our lives in one way or another. So we know talking about it is important to share, understanding and to keep everyone updated. If you or someone you know was previously diagnosed with HR positive, HER2 negative early breast cancer and went through treatment, you might be surprised to learn that it could come back. That's why I want to tell you about a breast cancer treatment called Kiskali Kiskali Ribociclib 200mg tablets are taken with an aromatase inhibitor. It's for adults with HR positive per 2, negative stage 2 or 3 early breast cancer with a high risk of recurrence and it can help reduce the risk of cancer coming back. In a clinical study at three years, 91% of people taking Kiskali plus an aromatase inhibitor were cancer free versus 88% taking an aromatase inhibitor alone. Individual results may vary. Kiskali may cause serious skin reactions, liver problems and low white blood cell counts that may result in serious infections. Life threatening lung problems and abnormal heartbeats can occur. Your doctor should test your heart and blood before and during treatment. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening cough, chest pain or dizziness before taking Kiskali. Tell your doctor all your medical conditions, medicines you take and if you're breastfeeding, pregnant or planning to be as it can harm an unborn baby. Common side effects include nausea, headache and tiredness. It's all about doing more today to help protect your tomorrow. Visit kiskali.com I know it's tricky to spell, so that's K I S Q A L I To learn more and ask your doctor if Kiskali is right for you.
- [23:07]
Amanda Knox
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- [23:11]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
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Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
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- [23:20]
Amanda Knox
We want to give women meaningful beauty.
- [23:23]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
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- [23:31]
Amanda Knox
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- [23:35]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
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- [23:40]
Amanda Knox
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Podcast Host
How are the test scores?
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Amanda Knox
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- [23:48]
Podcast Host
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- [23:50]
Amanda Knox
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Podcast Host
Parent reviews, test scores, student teacher ratio, school rankings and more. The information is from multiple trusted sources.
- [24:03]
Amanda Knox
And curated by Holmes.com's dedicated in house research team. It's also you can make the right.
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Podcast Host
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Amanda Knox
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- [24:23]
Amanda Knox
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Amanda Knox
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Amanda Knox
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- [25:03]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
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- [25:05]
Amanda Knox
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- [25:06]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
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- [25:18]
Amanda Knox
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- [25:19]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
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- [25:27]
Amanda Knox
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- [25:39]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Welcome back. I'm going to continue my conversation with Amanda. We're pretty much the same age and when I was reading her most recent book I really was struck by some similarities. Some similarities I wanted to share with her. I just wanna say personally, like, I finished your book yesterday and I couldn't help but feel so much similarity to you because I think I was around the same age that you were abroad. And like when you talk about Sailor Moon, I was like I am regressing and have a Sailor Moon phone case right now.
- [26:13]
Amanda Knox
Yes, girl.
- [26:16]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Oh, and like Harry Potter. And like I just like really felt for you and like putting myself in the shoes of being 20 in a new country, totally naive and then being thrown into, I can't imagine being thrown into the justice system here, let alone in another country.
- [26:34]
Amanda Knox
And I have actually another little like thing that I'm actually working on like a little standup bit about because we also have to remember that in 2007 it was also like peak of manic pixie dream girl vibes where like it was really cute to like, like strum a ukulele and dye your hair pink and just like be a sort of goofy girl up until your roommate gets murdered and then you become a Law and Order episode because everyone's like, oh, you're a fricking psychopath.
- [27:03]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
So, yeah, you know, unfortunately, we weren't granted the right to interview Sandy. It was denied because she's in a medical facility. But I have been able to write to her. And she kind of took me through the daily humdrums of prison. You know, the structure of it. And, you know, one of them major takeaways and just reading that is that her world has become so small now. And I'm wondering, you know, just from your experience, is that a self preservation technique? How do you start to cope when your world just becomes smaller and smaller?
- [27:39]
Amanda Knox
Well, I think that different people respond differently. I know that my first two years of imprisonment, I was living in a kind of state of denial that I was. I felt like I was living somebody else's life by mistake. I also spent a significant amount of that time in isolation. So when I was arrested, I was not immediately thrown into gen pop. I was held in isolation for eight months. And so there was this weird limbo space period while the investigation was ongoing that I was like, not a part of the greater world of the prison environment. And then I was put into gen pop after the investigation closed, after eight months of imprisonment. And then I spent, you know, another good amount of time in prison before I was actually convicted. And I got through it by really believing in the justice system and believing that the truth would win out and that eventually once the adults sort of all gathered into the room and agreed beyond a reasonable doubt, I was going to go home. I was going to get back to my life. So I was just sort of waiting to live, and I was waiting to live in a very, very scary, very foreign, very punitive environment. But I was very much mentally feeling like I'm not here. I'm out there. I'm writing letters to my family every day. I'm writing letters to my friends every day. I'm reading books. I'm just like hanging in there until I can get my life back. And then everything shifted for me after I got convicted and I was facing a 26 year sentence. And I realized that my life was not somewhere else out there. It was right here in the prison. This was my life. And I was almost wasting my opportunities to live by waiting to live. Like, I started looking around me and going, okay, what possibilities do I have to live in here? And they were very limited. Right? Like, I cannot open a single door. There's very few people I can talk to. I only have one 10 minute phone call a week. I only have one visitation a week that lasts for an hour and Only very specific people can come visit me. I have very few opportunities in life. My opportunities weirdly expanded once I looked around me in the prison environment, and I realized that many of the women that I was imprisoned with were actually very less privileged than me, despite me being the innocent person in prison and how unfair that was. Like, all of these guilty women around me did not have loved ones who cared about them, could not read and write, were, you know, dealing with mental illness or drug addiction. I had none of those problems. And so I discovered that I could develop a prison hustle. So a sense of purpose in prison, where I started writing and reading people's letters for them, helping them understand their court documents. And it became this, like, invaluable resource that both selfishly elevated me within the prison, you know, hierarchy as someone to not fuck with, you know, like, you don't want to, you know, like, this is. Amanda writes our letters for us. Do not bother her. You know, and on the flip side, it was helpful to other people. And so the possibilities for any single person in prison are very, very limited, but they are there. It's just that, you know, for me, surviving in prison meant that I took everything day by day. I did not have dreams of my future. I had a really hard time imagining how I could live a fulfilled life in prison. And I had to grieve the things that were stolen from me, like the possibility of having children. Women who are imprisoned and especially for long sentences are facing our biological clocks running out while we are in prison. And so not only do we lose, you know, the opportunity of a career or anything like that, but we lose the opportunity of having a family of our own. And. And I had to grieve that and try to imagine a life worth living that didn't have that aspect to it. And it was really, honestly, too difficult for me to imagine. So I instead focused on how do I make today worth living? And I'll figure out tomorrow. Tomorrow?
- [32:20]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Yeah. And I imagine, you know, Sandy doesn't have the same circumstances, but it's a similar thing of the connections that she can get with her grandchildren, the connections that she can get with her daughter. You know, one thing that you talk about, which, you know, even though I didn't get to meet Sandy in person, I do know her daughter, and I spent a couple days with her in London. And, you know, Liz really talks about, and you talk about it in your book too, as this before and after, where she really remembers who she was before her dad's murder and her mom's imprisonment. And who she is now. And, you know, she talks about similar things that you talked about in your most recent book of not being able to trust anybody to feeling, you know, agoraphobic. And I think that that would be a great thing if you could just kind of talk about your own experience of those two identities, you know, And I imagine, please correct me if I'm wrong. You know, you were talking about this fantasy of maybe getting out and what life will be like. Maybe isn't what you fantasized and how you sort of start to make sense of this new life.
- [33:27]
Amanda Knox
Yeah. I look back on my life and see it as lived three distinct lives. Right. Like, there's before I was arrested for a crime I didn't commit. And then there's the life that I lived in prison. And then there is the life that I have lived since I've been fully exonerated. And they are very, very different lives and very different people, in a way, who lived those lives. Right. Like, since, you know, getting out of prison, I went back to Italy because, you know, while I was in prison, I had this fantasy that as soon as I got out, I would get to go back to that life of before prison. I would get to go back to being the anonymous college student who was, you know, studying languages and doing creative writing. And. And this horrible thing that just happened to me that didn't really have anything to do with me would fade away. Like, it would go away. And I was very rudely awakened to the reality that that was not the case when I got home. Not just because I was still on trial after being released from prison and the media were, you know, following me around, and I was still the girl accused of murder in the. In the public imagination. I could never go back to being an anonymous person in the world. Like, I was carrying the stigma of that accusation forever with me from an external point of view. But on top of that, there is the realization that the girl that nothing bad had ever happened to no longer existed. And I was carrying with me a deep knowledge and experience of suffering that I didn't have before, that had changed me and that I now was burdened with having to make sense of. And it. It changed me. I mean, like, I. I had emotions that I never really felt before, A big one being rage. I was not somebody who experienced rage when I was a kid. Like, that was deep, deep existential angst, or I was never the kind of person who was triggered by being around other people. Or there was this period of time when I got out when everyone in my family sort of had to walk around on eggshells around me because they didn't know, like, what kind of thing was going to set me off. And because they had not, you know, walked through the prison experience alongside me, they had not been in the interrogation room with me. And so there were things that I experience in the real world that had, like, just a little bit of resonance or even just something like walking down the sidewalk and glimpsing somebody out of the corner of my eye who reminded me a lot of one of my cellmates. And then immediately I'm just, like, back on the prison block, and I'm just. And I have to, like, get that out of my head so I can just keep on walking to my job at the bookstore. Right? Like, there are these things, like, you feel haunted by these experiences that you've gone through, and you have to make sense of them in order to feel like you are not just utterly debilitated by them, which is the journey that I then describe in my new book, which is taking the question of, like, now what? Now that I've gone through this, now what? How do I have a place in the world after this? How do I trust people after this? How do I trust myself after all of this? Those are big questions that anyone who has gone through trauma is going to face, but especially someone who. Who has been, again, victimized by crime and the criminal justice system. Those institutions collapsed beneath her, beneath me. And how do you rebuild a sense of stability and confidence in the world and in humanity after having that taken away from you? Right. We've all had loss. We've all had a worse moment of our lives. We've all had something happen to us that was out of our control. And it is finding that common ground that we can see each other and support each other.
- [37:55]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Beautifully said. Thank you so much. I think so often it's hard for us to fathom what it's like going through something like Amanda did. But if we can focus on the universal experiences she flagged, like loss, grief, having something happen to us outside of our control, it may help us better understand each other and the different paths all our lives take. So I want to thank Amanda again for taking the time to chat with me. And after a quick break, I'll catch up at the Innocence Project of Texas and hear some of the latest developments. In Sandy's case.
- [38:41]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Hosts compensated for their time.
- [38:43]
Amanda Knox
Time.
- [38:44]
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- [40:31]
Amanda Knox
Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the.
- [40:33]
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- [40:34]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
When Dr. Saba and I decided to.
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- [40:52]
Amanda Knox
You're going to get results and then you just go out and live your life. Meaningful Beauty Confidence is beautiful.
- [40:59]
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Learn more@meaningfulbeauty.com Homes.com knows having the right.
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Podcast Host
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Amanda Knox
That's why they provide home shoppers with.
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Podcast Host
An agent directory that gives you a detailed look at each agent's experience, like.
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Amanda Knox
The number of closed sales in a.
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Podcast Host
Specific neighborhood, average price range, and more. It lets you easily connect with all the agents in the area you're searching so you can find the right agent with the right experience and ultimately the.
- [41:26]
Amanda Knox
Right home for you. Homes.com, we've done your homework, new school year, new routines, and a calendar that somehow filled up overnight. When life gets hectic, the last thing you want to do is cook from scratch. With all of that cleanup for those busy days, cauliflower's got your back. Cauliflower makes the food you crave, but made better for you. The best part? You don't have to sacrifice taste or time so you can honor your cravings without compromising. Think thin, crispy cauliflower crust pizzas, all natural chicken tenders coated in cauliflower and.
- [41:59]
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- [42:06]
Amanda Knox
Full of flavor 100%. Answering the what's for dinner? Question has never been easier. Caulifow's products are available in freezer aisles nationwide. Visit eatcaulypower.com wheretobuy to find a store.
- [42:19]
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- [43:25]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
So again, welcome back. Appreciate you staying with us. Before we hear from the Innocence Project of Texas, a quick reminder of where things were left back in 2012. On the night Jim's body was found, the police swapped the crime scene for DNA and took away more than 100 bits of evidence for further testing. But because they were low level samples, many didn't reveal much. As we heard in the last episode, technology has come a long way since then, and the Innocence Project is trying to get some of those bits of evidence retested. We heard about the murder weapon, the knife that was found in the Jacuzzi, and how a new test showed Jim's DNA was found on it, but so was at least one other person's, someone who isn't Sandy or anyone else in the family. Now, other samples from the crime scene have been reanalyzed, like the fabric that was used to tie Sandy up in the closet where she was found. And Mike Ware from the Innocence Project of Texas explains what those tests reveal.
- [44:35]
Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
The bindings on Sandy. They have reanalyzed the data taken from the swabs from the bindings on her arms and hands, and they have determined that her DNA is on there.
- [44:45]
Amanda Knox
There.
- [44:46]
Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
But so is an unknown person's DNA on there. It's not anybody in the family's. It's not. It doesn't belong to them who originally found her and untied her. It is an unknown DNA. Now, it's not redundant of what's on the knife handle, which does tell us there were two people.
- [45:03]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
So there's Sandy's DNA, as you'd expect, on the bindings used to tie her up, but there's also someone else's DNA, and that DNA is different to the DNA on the knife.
- [45:15]
Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
There's no reason to believe there was not at least two people. I have no reason to believe there weren't two people. One person's DNA on the bindings of Sandy, another person's DNA on the murder weapon, which I think is enough that she should win a writ on that.
- [45:31]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
A writ of habeas corpus, which basically means they are asking for a federal court to re review Sandy's case because they believe she is wrongly imprisoned.
- [45:42]
Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
When you look at the evidence at trial vis a vis this new evidence, it's very powerful. And then we decided that we wanted to DNA test the hair or hairs that were in Jim's hand. They're fairly short, rootless hairs in. Around his hand. This is not, you know, a case where he was shot by a gun from across the room, he was in a struggle that resulted in, you know, however many stab and cut wounds. And so this was a very, as they say, up close and personal. So if he has a hair or hairs, regardless of the fact that they're very short and rootless in his hands, that belong to an unknown individual, once again, we would say that it's highly likely that that unknown individual that is not Sandy and is not him is the person he was struggling with in his, you know, last moments. And the judge has signed the order ordering that done, ordering that testing done.
- [46:46]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
And so that's the first step to kind of start to figure out whose hair, if it isn't Jim's or Sandy's, whose it could possibly be?
- [46:56]
Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
Well, it belongs to the murderer who's not Sandy. That's whose it is. Now, the only way to identify whose it is is to have an alternative suspect and get a profile from that alternative suspect and do a side by side. And if it's a match, that in and of itself might not be enough to convict that person because the numbers are not that high.
- [47:20]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
I know in our last conversation you were saying that, you know, justice is very much a marathon and not a sprint. But in terms of these new developments and these new angles, where are you on the hope spectrum?
- [47:35]
Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
I feel very cautiously optimistic. And the thing about getting back into court and getting a judge involved, I mean, the DA's office has been very cooperative with us. But having a judge involved and having a formal motion, and this is a formal, what we call chapter 64 motion for post conviction DNA testing and we've got kind of those guardrails that, you know, we've got a judge pushing us along too. So hopefully that will speed the process.
- [48:06]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Well, I, I hope that you'll keep us posted on how it goes in these results because it seems like things are, are moving in, in ways that when the last time we talked. Seems like there's more momentum now.
- [48:20]
Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
I. I think so. I think so.
- [48:22]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Yeah. You.
- [48:30]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
We will continue to be following this story as it progresses and I hope we'll be able to update you with any major developments. Not to be all like and subscribe, but like and subscribe and any new updates will be uploaded to the feed next week. I'm going to get into some of the stuff that that didn't quite make it into the series, including more on the home invasions that were plaguing parts of Texas in 2012. I hope you'll stay with us and I hope to see you next week. Thanks. You've been listening to Hands Tied. I'm Maggie Robinson Katz and the producer is Maggie Latham. Sound design in mix is by Tom Brignell. Our script consultant is Emma Weatherall. Production support is from Dan Marchini, Elena Boateng and Mabel Finnegan Wright. And our production executive is Laura Jordan Raul. The series was developed by Anya Saunders and emma Shaw at iHeart. The managing executive producer producer is Christina Everett and for BBC Studios the executive producer is Joe Kent.
- [49:53]
Podcast Host
Host compensated for their time. I used to play team sports and shared a locker room with a whole lot of women. Plus 14 roommates in one college house. I still text, call or see so many of those women regularly. We talk about everything even breast cancer, which has affected several of my friends. Breast cancer has impacted all our lives in one way or another, so we know talking about it is important to share, understanding and to keep everyone updated. If you or someone you know was previously diagnosed with HR positive HER2 negative early breast cancer and went through treatment, you might be surprised to learn that it could come back. That's why I want to tell you about a breast cancer treatment called Kiskali. Kiskali ribociclib 200 milligram tablets are taken with an aromatase inhibitor. It's for adults with HR positive positive HER 2 negative stage 2 or 3 early breast cancer with a high risk of recurrence and it can help reduce the risk of cancer coming back. In a clinical study at three years, 91% of people taking Kiskali plus an aromatase inhibitor were cancer free versus 88% taking an aromatase inhibitor alone. Individual results may vary. Kiskali may cause serious skin reactions, liver problems and low white blood cell counts that may result in serious infections. Life threatening lung problems and abnormal heartbeats can occur. Your doctor should test your heart and blood before and during treatment. Treatment Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening cough, chest pain or dizziness before taking Kiskali. Tell your doctor all your medical conditions, medicines you take and if you're breastfeeding, pregnant or planning to be as it can harm an unborn baby. Common side effects include nausea, headache and tiredness. It's all about doing more today to help protect your tomorrow. Visit kiskali.com I know it's tricky to spell, so that's K I S Q A L I to learn more and ask your doctor if Kiskali is right for you.
- [51:34]
Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Ah, come on.
- [51:35]
Amanda Knox
Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's tech Upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultralight Ultra powerful and built for serious productivity with Intel Core.
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Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Ultra processors, blazing speed and AI powered.
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Amanda Knox
Performance that keeps up with your business.
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Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
Not the other way around.
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Amanda Knox
Whoa, this thing moves. Stop hitting snooze on new tech.
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Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
Win the tech search@lenovo.com.
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Amanda Knox
Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon powered by.
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Interviewer (Maggie Robinson Katz)
Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device.
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Podcast Host
At Hill's Pet Nutrition we know that pet parent guilt is real.
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Amanda Knox
Leaving too long, playing too little. New homes, new babies, Waking them up when they look so comfy. Running out of patience, running out of treats, running the vacuum.
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Podcast Host
You can only do so much. That's why there's there's Hills Science led nutrition to help you give more love than humanly possible. Because you're only human, there's hills. Find the right food@hillspet.com Science does more.
- [52:42]
Amanda Knox
Chances are you've been to the doctor recently and you probably handed over your insurance, your ID and even your Social Security number. Your doctor is just one of many places that has your personal info, and if any of them accidentally expose your details, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code iheart or go to lifelock.com iheart for 40% off. Terms apply.
- [53:15]
Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
Have you ever heard a story so.
- [53:17]
Amanda Knox
Unbelievable it just had to be true?
- [53:19]
Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
Roofman is the jaw dropping new film.
- [53:21]
Amanda Knox
About Jeffrey Manchester, played by Channing Tatum.
- [53:24]
Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
A man who becomes infamous for breaking into over 40 McDonald's through the roof.
- [53:28]
Amanda Knox
Then secretly living inside of Toys R Us for six months.
- [53:32]
Mike Ware (Innocence Project of Texas)
With humor, suspense and heart, Roofman is a cat and mouse story that will keep you hooked until the very end. Don't miss Roofman.
- [53:39]
Amanda Knox
Only in theaters October 10th.
- [53:41]
Podcast Host
This is an I Heart podcast.