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- [00:01]
Carter Roy
Crime House exists because of listeners like you want to support Murder True Crime Stories and get the best listening experience. Join Crime House plus and get both parts of each week's story dropped at once, completely ad free. No more waiting for part two. Plus you'll get ad free and early access to every show across Crime House and bonus episodes every month. To join go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of the Murder True Crime Stories show page. This is crime house. Studying abroad is supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime. You leave behind everything familiar, your friends, your family, your routine and start over in a place where nobody knows you. It's exciting, it's terrifying, and for most people, it's an experience that changes them forever. For Meredith Kercher, it was all of that. The 21 year old British student had spent months preparing for her semester in Italy. She studied the language she dreamed about, the life she'd build there. And when she finally arrived in Perugia, reality exceeded the fantasy. She found new friends, had new experiences, and embraced a city that felt like it was made for her. But just five weeks in, Meredith's adventure was cut brutally short. On November 1, 2007, she was found murdered in her apartment. What followed should have been a search for justice. Instead, it became something else entirely. Because as cameras descended on Perugia, they didn't focus on Meredith. They focused on her roommate, a 20 year old American named Amanda Knox. And from that moment on, the story stopped being about a young woman who was killed and became about the young woman who might have killed her. It took years to untangle the truth, and by the time it was over, more than one life had been destroyed. People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy and this is True Crime Stories, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. New episodes come out every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with Friday's episodes covering the cases that deserve a deeper look. Thank you for being part of the Crime House community. Please rate, review and follow the show and for early ad free access to every episode. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. This is the first of two episodes on the murder of Meredith Kircher, a 21 year old British student who moved to Italy for a semester abroad and never made it back home. Today I'll introduce you to Meredith, a bright and popular young woman who left South London for the ancient city of Perugia. I'll walk you through her first weeks in Italy, the friends she made, and what happened on the night of November 1, 2007. After a late dinner with friends, Meredith headed back to her apartment for the last time. Next time I'll get into the investigation and the circus that followed. Meredith's killer was identified pretty quickly, but Italian authorities also turned their attention to two people nobody expected. Meredith's American roommates, 20 year old Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend, 23 year old Raphael Socialito. What came next was years of wall to wall media coverage, multiple trials and a legal fight that went all the way to Italy's highest court. By the time it was finally over in 2015, one thing was clear. The world cared a lot more about the drama than the truth. All that and more coming up.
- [04:54]
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- [05:27]
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- [06:00]
Carter Roy
Meredith Kercher lived for adventure. She was the youngest of four children, born in south London in 1985 to an Indian mother and a British father. It was a lively, multilingual household, the kind of home where conversations spilled into different languages and no one sat still for long. Her dad, John, was a journalist. He'd written for tabloids like the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror and had published books on acts like Guns N Roses, Madonna and Wham. Growing up around that world left a mark on Meredith. She wanted to be a journalist, too, though she was drawn more to politics than pop culture. Even after her parents divorced in 1997, when Meredith was 11 or 12, she and her dad stayed close. She and her siblings lived with their mom, but they called John every single night. Their bond never wavered. Both of her parents watched with pride as Meredith grew into the kind of person who lit up a room. They she had this natural ease with people. Warm, funny, and sharp enough to hold her own in any conversation. In school, she was popular without trying too hard, the sort of student who always ended up leading the group project not because she asked to, but because everyone just looked to her. And she wasn't afraid to hustle either. As a teenager, she pulled shifts as a bartender and worked as a tour guide. And thanks to her dad's connections, she even landed a spot in a music video for an indie rock band when she was 19. By 2007, she was studying European politics and Italian at Leeds University, still chasing that dream of becoming a political journalist. And then, at 21, she qualified for a scholarship that would let her study abroad for a semester. She could go almost anywhere in Europe. She chose Perugia. It was a deliberate choice. Perugia is a small, picturesque town in central Italy. It's full of ancient stone buildings, cultural festivals, and some of the best chocolate in the world. Meredith figured a quieter, more rural place would keep her safe and give her the chance to really connect with the locals. She wasn't looking for the chaos of Rome or Milan. She wanted something real. In the months before she left, she threw herself into studying Italian. She imagined the vistas, the piazzas, the long dinners with new friends. By the time she packed her bags, she'd already built the whole adventure in her head. And when she got there in late September of 2007, it was even better than she could have imagined. By pure luck, she found a place to stay just a two minute walk from the university where she was studying. A large stone cottage that had been a farmhouse about 300 years earlier. From the outside, it was beautiful. Clean white walls, pale red tiled roof, emerald green shutters that looked like something off a postcard. The inside was a different story. There were four cramped bedrooms connected by a hallway so narrow that two people could barely edge past each other. But Meredith didn't care, especially because she liked the people. Two Italian women were already living in the apartment when she arrived. Filomena Romanelli and Laura Metzetti, who were both in their late 20s their English wasn't perfect, but it was solid and they were eager to practice. A third roommate, a 20 year old American named Amanda Knox, moved in about a week after Meredith did. And before I keep going, I want to point out that most of the following comes from Nina Burleigh's book, the Fatal Gift of Beauty. Her work was instrumental to this episode. The foursome hit it off right away. As native English speakers, Meredith and Amanda seem like natural allies. They were close in age, both living away from home for the first time, and both outgoing and romantic in that way young people abroad often are. At first glance, they had a lot in common. But there were differences too. Meredith was there on a prestigious scholarship, while Amanda had taken a year off from the University of Washington to enroll in an independent study program. She'd paid for the whole thing herself, supplementing her savings with shifts at a local bar called Le Chic. During the first few weeks of October, the house found its rhythm. Meredith and Amanda both went to morning classes at the university for foreigners, came home around one o' clock for lunch, and split off Meredith to more courses, Amanda sometimes to the bar at night. They went out, though not always together. Meredith quickly fell in with a group of British exchange students who became her core crew. Philomena and Laura mostly kept to their own schedules. They were a few years older and had their own lives in Perugia. But they noticed what was happening between their two younger roommates, and what they saw was a friendship that was already starting to come apart at the seams. According to Philomena, Amanda and Meredith were practically inseparable at first. But by mid October, barely two weeks in, things started to shift. Both of them liked going out, but some of Meredith's friends would later describe Amanda as the wilder of the two, and Meredith began pulling back. Amanda didn't seem to mind. She preferred hanging out with Italians anyway. Trying to immerse herself in the language, she avoided the other Americans at her school and chatted up customers at the bar or the young men who lived downstairs in the farmhouse. Most of her new friends happened to be guys. That might have been part of the problem, at least according to Amy Frost, one of the British students in Meredith's scholarship group. Amy said that Meredith secretly thought Amanda was loud, a little rude, and kind of weird. She complained about Amanda's hygiene and how she walked around the apartment naked. According to Amy, Meredith was also uncomfortable with how casually Amanda brought men home for the night. None of this blew up into some big confrontation, but the tension was palpable and the Situation with the downstairs roommates might have only made things worse. The four women lived upstairs, while four young men, also students who were in permanent party mode, lived in the apartment on the ground floor. Depending on who you asked, either some of the guys or all of them had a crush on Amanda and Meredith. But none of them were as openly fixated as a guy named Rudy Guede, a frequent house guest who kept showing up at the downstairs apartment uninvited. Rudi was 20 years old. Originally from the Ivory coast, he'd lived in Italy since he was 5. His mother wasn't in the picture. His father, Roger, was a construction worker and by most accounts, not the best parent. As a boy, Rudy went without warm clothes. In the winter, he ate cold pasta alone while his dad was at work. When Roger wanted to discipline him, he locked Rudy out of the house. Neighbors in Perugia saw him sleeping on the streets as a little boy. Other nights, he curled up on the bare floor of the attic. Luckily, one of his teachers took pity on him. She started packing Rudy's lunches, taking him to church, and helping raise him in ways his father never did. By his teenage years, Rudy felt closer to her than to anyone in his own family. Then, in 2004, when Rudy was 17 or 18, his father went back to the Ivory coast for what was supposed to be a short visit. But a civil war prevented him from returning for four years. Roger's common law wife was supposed to look after Rudy in the meantime. But without his father around, Rudy stopped listening completely. He quit school and left home. Through his elementary school teacher's connections, he landed with a wealthy local family who took him in. By all accounts, he was a polite, melancholy teenager. Shy, rarely angry. His new benefactors got him into a prestigious prep school, and for a while, he. It seemed like things might work out. But then he started to struggle, and instead of asking for help, he lied about his grades, about his tutoring sessions, about whether he was even going to class. It took months for his surrogate family to figure out what was really going on. Rudy dropped out of school in 2007 at the age of 20. His foster parents found him a job as a gardener, but he couldn't even show up for that on time. Eventually, his foster parents had no choice but to cut him loose. He bounced around after that, staying with some relatives for a few months, then drifted back to Perugia. He managed to rent a studio apartment, but money was tight, and when he made new friends, a mix of shame about his background and hatred of his father pushed him to lie about everything. He told people his dad was a wealthy computer programmer. Nobody questioned the story, but everyone could tell something was off. Rudy would show up out of nowhere, hang around for a few weeks, then vanish without a word. He was evasive about where he lived. He skipped out on meals. Sometimes he asked to crash on someone's couch. And when he did, his friends woke up in the middle of the night to find him in a kind of trance, barking like a dog or pointing at an imaginary chalkboard like a teacher, still half asleep. It was sort of like sleepwalking, but he seemed slightly more aware. Rudy told his friends he had to hide his keys when he slept at home. Otherwise he would leave the apartment and walk for miles, then suddenly wake up with no idea where he was. But the sleepwalking was just the thing people could see. The issues brewing under the surface were a lot more concerning. For years, Rudy had survived by telling people whatever they wanted to hear. A different story for every room, a new version of himself for every friendship. But by October 2007, the gap between who Rudy said he was and who he actually was had become a chasm. And he was about to fall right through it. On this show, we're always digging for the truth. Yet modern healthcare remains one of the greatest mysteries of all. Everyone deserves real medical support. And that's why I want to talk about Mochi Health. Mochi is a nationwide platform that's bringing humanity and transparency back to healthcare by treating your unique biology. Not a fad. They've already helped 400,000 members lose over £5 million. And while they lead the way in weight loss, Mochi is now a full scale Marketplace for over 120 treatments ranging from hair and skin care to longevity, mental health, and specialized men's and women's health. After you complete an eligibility form, you'll receive a telehealth evaluation with a partnered provider on Mochi's platform to build a plan personalized for your specific body and goals. You'll have 24. 7 access to your provider and specialized medications from a network of licensed pharmacies delivered right to your door. No waiting rooms or hidden fees. You just pay for your membership and your medication. It's personalized care that actually treats you like a human being. Stop leaving your health up to an algorithm. Go to joinmochi.com if you've ever wondered
- [18:28]
Lemonade Pet Insurance Advertiser
what diseases, medieval pee tests and cocktails have in common, you're in the right place.
- [18:33]
Podcast Will Kill You Host
On our show, this Podcast Will Kill youl, we explore the wild world of diseases, their history, biology, and impact. Today, vaccines are in part a victim of their own success. They have been so effective in preventing disease and death that we take them for granted.
- [18:48]
Lemonade Pet Insurance Advertiser
New episodes drop every Tuesday on the Exactly Right Network.
- [18:51]
Podcast Will Kill You Host
Listen to this podcast will kill you on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [18:58]
Lemonade Pet Insurance Advertiser
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- [19:29]
Carter Roy
By the fall of 2007, 20 year old Rudy Guede was struggling to make ends meet in Peru, Italy. His friends had no idea how bad things had gotten. Rudy was too proud, or maybe too ashamed to tell them. But behind the easygoing facade, he was desperate. Apparently desperate enough to start breaking into other people's homes. On the morning of September 27, sometime after 1am A man matching Rudy's description tried to burglarize a stranger's house in Perugia. The homeowner woke up and found the intruder ransacking the place, reeking of wine. He chased the man outside but never called the police. Later, he spotted Rudy at a local bar and recognized him as the thief. He still didn't report it. Seven days later, someone broke into a school in milan, more than 250 miles away, and stole approximately 2,000. But the thief didn't just take the money. He used the kitchen to cook massive quantities of pasta, then left the whole place trashed. This time police were called, and over the next couple of weeks, two more bizarre break ins popped up around Perugia. The pattern was the same. The intruder either cooked food during the burglary or or left objects arranged in strange, almost ritualistic patterns on the floor. Then, on October 23, a teacher arrived at the Milan school on a Saturday to let in a plumber. She found Rudy sitting in an office, calmly plugging in his laptop. He wasn't supposed to be there, that much was obvious. But what was strange was how he acted. He was totally relaxed and polite, as if he'd been invited. Even as she called the authorities, he didn't flinch. When police searched his backpack. They found a gold watch, a set of keys, and a knife from the school kitchen at the station. Rudy refused to explain any of it, except to say that he lived in Perugia. Authorities there told Milan police to send him home, so they reluctantly released him without charges. He was never tried for any of the burglaries, but law enforcement in both cities considered him their number one suspect. So by late October 2007, Rudy's life was in a free fall. He was broke, desperate, dodging police in two cities, and no one in his circle had any idea. Now, that's the thing about Rudy. He could walk into a room full of strangers and make everyone feel like they'd known him for years. He was soft spoken, relaxed, easy to be around. And that's exactly how he ended up in the orbit of Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher. The guys who lived in the apartment below. The women threw parties practically every night. They had an open door policy. Anyone could swing by for a drink or smoke some hashtag. A form of marijuana common in Europe that's made from resin. It can be stronger than other forms of the drug, but has similar effects. Rudy wasn't much of a smoker, but he liked to drink. And sometime in October, he just showed up. Nobody could remember actually inviting him. One of the roommates, Stefano, recalled seeing him for the first time at a get together. Rudy introduced himself as Baron, and after the NBA point guard Baron Davis, the nickname stuck. And soon the downstairs guys started calling him the Baron. Before long, the Baron was a regular fixture. The next time Steffano saw him, Rudy was passed out in the bathroom, slumped over a disgusting toilet. Stefano tried to kick him out, but Rudy was too far gone to move. He ended up sleeping on the couch. A week later, he showed up uninvited to watch a formula one race on their tv. The roommates were annoyed, but he seemed harmless enough. He mostly just sat around, chatted and drank, so they let it slide. Eventually, Rudy met Amanda, and from the moment he laid eyes on her, he was smitten. And he wasn't the only one. One night, while smoking with the the guys downstairs, the conversation turned to her. According to Rudy, every man in the room was talking about how beautiful Amanda was, imagining what it would be like to be with her. Then, mid conversation, Amanda appeared in the doorway. A few of the guys chuckled at the timing and waved her in. Later that evening, Meredith joined the circle, too. Rudy was captivated by both her and Amanda. He spent the next few hours making conversation here and there, reading into every glance. He convinced himself Amanda was giving him suggestive looks, though their relationship never went beyond small talk. Whether Amanda was actually interested in Rudy is an open question, but if she was, he was just one name on a long list. Another was Giacomo, one of the guys from the the downstairs apartment. When Giacomo and a friend invited Amanda and Meredith to a nightclub, both women said yes. A long night of drinking and dancing followed. When the club closed, Giacomo went home with Meredith while Amanda paired up with his friend. For Amanda, it was a one night thing. But for Giacomo and Meredith, it was the beginning of a situationship. And as you might expect, things. Things got awkward fast. There was a major language barrier. For one, Meredith spoke enough Italian to carry on a basic conversation, but Giacomo barely spoke any English. They could hardly even manage a phone call. That made it tough to figure out where they stood. Giacomo said he liked Meredith, but he claimed he wasn't the jealous type. In public, he actually went out of his way to avoid her. Maybe out of shyness or maybe because he was embarrassed about dating a foreigner. But one of his roommates thought he was more attached than he let on. Either way, Meredith felt possessive enough to notice when Amanda got too close. According to one of her friends, Meredith believed Amanda was trying to steal him. And allegedly, Amanda didn't exactly help her case. Meredith's friend would later testify that Amanda told Meredith, I like Giacomo too, but you can have him. That kind of remark, casual, almost dismissive, only deepened the rift. But by the end of the month, Amanda had moved on. On October 25, she spotted a 23 year old Italian named Raphael Solicito at a concert. She locked eyes with him and smiled until he came over to sit beside her. That night, after her shift at the bar, they went back to his place, smoked a joint and slept together. For Raphael, it wasn't casual. He was a virgin, and from day one he was completely head over heels. Filomena described him as practically glued to Amanda's side. After October 25, he followed her everywhere. And while she was into him too, she was clearly the one in common control. Before long, Amanda stopped coming home to the farmhouse at night and stayed at Raphael's place instead. To the outside world, it looked like a real relationship. Almost. Amanda confided in Philomena that she felt a twinge of guilt. She had a boyfriend back in the States. They were technically in an open relationship, but she worried she was pushing the boundaries of their arrangement. Still, she wasn't about to push Raphael away. He treated her well. He made her happy. And for now, that was enough. By Halloween, the new couple had been together for about a week. And Amanda decided to go out that night without Raphael. He drew whiskers on her face to complete her cat costume, kissed her goodbye, and stayed in. Halloween isn't much of a holiday in Italy, so to him it was just another evening. But in the UK it's just as important as it is in the US And Meredith had plans with her British friends. Plans Amanda wasn't part of. So on the night of October 31, 2007, the two roommates headed out in different directions. Meredith to a pub with her crew, Amanda to the bar where she worked. What happened over the next 24 hours depends on who's telling the story, but one thing is clear. On November 1, 2007, one of them wound up dead. The question that would consume investigators and the rest of the world was who saw her last?
- [28:49]
Lemonade Pet Insurance Advertiser
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- [29:17]
Keith Morrison
such an ordinary thing to walk home from high school. Her name was Mickey Costanzo. Just 16, she didn't have far to go. Seemed perfectly safe. Until it wasn't. What happened to Mickey? I'm Keith Morrison and this is five Miles From Home, an all new podcast from Dateline. Search five Miles From Home to start listening now.
- [29:50]
Carter Roy
By Halloween night in 2007, the Farmhouse in Perugia had become a pressure cooker. A month of crushes, hookups and quiet resentments had tangled the lives of everyone who lived there or drifted through. And the fast friendship between 21 year old Meredith Kercher and 20 year old Amanda Knox. It had started to cool off, so instead of going out together, the two roommates split up. Meredith put on a vampire costume, fangs, a faux bloody lip, the whole thing, and headed to Merlin pub with her British crew. While she was there, she may have crossed paths with Rudy Guetti. Meredith's friends don't remember seeing him that night, but Rudy later insisted he'd flirted with her at the pub, asking if she could suck his blood. If the encounter happened at all. It was brief. After that, Meredith and her friends left the pub and hit a nightclub where they danced until five in the morning. As For Amanda, she dressed up as a cat and walked down to Le Chic, the bar where she worked part time. Even though she was dating Rafael Sollechido, she chose to go out alone that night. And according to the owner of the bar, he saw her cuddling up with two different men. Either way, after Lachic, Amanda bounced to a few other spots before eventually making her way back to Rafael's place. Around 2am the next morning, November 1, she woke up early, left Raphael sleeping, and went back to the farmhouse. She was already there when Meredith stumbled out of her bedroom, hung over with costume blood still smeared on her lips. The two of them chatted for a bit. Then Raphael came over and they all had a pasta lunch together. Around 4:30 in the afternoon, Meredith left for a British friend's apartment. Half an hour later, Amanda and Raphael headed back to his place. They downloaded the movie. Amelie had a late dinner sometime between 9 and 11pm and settled in for the night. Then the pipes under Raphael's sink burst. They soaked up what they could, but he didn't have a mop, so Amanda told him she'd grab one from the farmhouse in the morning. After that, the couple read for a while, smoked a joint and went to bed. Meanwhile, Meredith was having a quiet evening with friends. She and three other exchange students watched the Notebook at someone's apartment. They ordered pizza. Someone made an apple crumble. It was low key, the kind of night where nobody's in a rush to leave. But just before 9, Meredith headed out with one of the other students. She didn't say where she was going, but after such a long Halloween, the night before seemed pretty clear she was just heading home. The two of them split up a few minutes from the farmhouse. Meredith continued on alone. She had two phones in her purse that night. One was her British cell, the one she used to call friends and family back home. The other was a spare that Philomena had loaned her for local calls. At 8.56pm, her British phone dialed her mom. The call never fully connected. It might have been a pocket dial, or the call might have been cut off for some other reason. There's no way to know. Either way, she made it back to the farmhouse soon after. About an hour later, the same phone dialed her bank in the uk, connected for a moment, then immediately hung up. By that point, Meredith should have been the only person in the building. Amanda was at Raphael's. Philomena and Laura were both away for the weekend. Even the four guys downstairs were gone, out of town on vacation. The farmhouse was empty. But that just meant there was no one around to hear Meredith scream. What happened next is disputed, but here's what Amanda later told police. She said she woke up on Nov. 2 and went back to the farmhouse around 10 or 11am the front door was wide open. She tried calling her roommates, including Meredith, to see if one of them had left it that way on purpose. Nobody picked up. So Amanda figured someone had just stepped out to take out the trash and forgotten to close it behind them. She went to the bathroom she shared with Meredith. There were drops of blood on the floor and the bath mat. A bloody smear, maybe a partial handprint on the sink. At first, Amanda assumed it was menstrual blood. It grossed her out, but she didn't think much of it, so she took a shower anyway. Afterward, she went to the other bathroom, Laura and Philomena's, to dry her hair. There were feces in the toilet. She didn't flush it. She just grabbed a mop and some cleaning supplies and headed back to Raphael's. She guessed it was around 11:30. Over breakfast, she mentioned the blood to Raphael, and he told her she should check on her roommates. Amanda called Philomena first. She said she was at her boyfriend's place and hadn't been home since the day before. Then Amanda tried Meredith once, twice, three times. No answer. At that point, Amanda was officially worried. So she and Raphael went back to the farmhouse and started checking rooms. When they got to Philomena's bedroom, they found the window smashed in. There was glass all over the floor. Amanda was terrified that someone had broken in. But she didn't go inside Philomena's bedroom. Instead, she looked around the den and her her bedroom, trying to figure out if anything was missing. Nothing seemed to be. But Meredith's door was locked, and according to Amanda, Meredith only locked her room when she was showering in the bathroom they shared. Amanda ran downstairs to see if the guys in the ground floor apartment had heard anything from Meredith. Nobody was home. Back upstairs, Raphael tried to kick Meredith's door down. It wouldn't budge. So he called his older sister, who worked for the local police. She told him to dial the emergency number. He made the call. Then he and Amanda went outside to wait. What they didn't know was that a different branch of law enforcement was already on the way. The Postal Police, a division that mostly handles cybercrime and financial fraud, had been called hours earlier. Earlier that morning, at around 10am A neighbor had found the phone Filomena loaned Meredith lying out in the Garden. Around noon, a second neighbor found Meredith's British cell in the grass nearby. Both were turned over to police. Officer Michele Baristelli was dispatched to return them. So by pure coincidence, right around 12:30pm Just after Rafael and Amanda had called for help, they looked up and saw a postal police officer walking toward them. Rafael explained the situation, and Baristelli followed them inside. Just as they were walking in, Filomena and Laura pulled up with two of their male friends. Suddenly, there were seven people crammed into the small apartment, and things only got more chaotic from there. Filomena was especially shaken. After all, her room was the one with a smashed window. She rushed in and started going through her things, trying to figure out what was taken. But here's what didn't make sense. The intruder had tossed her clothes and electronics everywhere, yet nothing appeared to be missing. Her jewelry was all still there. That detail nagged at everyone. But right now, there was a bigger problem. Meredith's door was still locked, and no one had heard from her. The roommates begged Botticelli to break down the door, but he refused. As a postal police officer, he didn't have the authority to damage property without opening a formal investigation. And at that point, he wasn't even sure there was a crime. The window was broken, sure, but Filomena said nothing was stolen. There could have been an innocent explanation. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Filomena's friend, a large man named Luca, decided to bash the door himself at around 1:15pm it took him several spartan kicks and a hard shoulder to finally get it open. Inside, a pile of white sheets lay crumpled on the floor, soaked through with blood. Next to them, behind the bed, a single bare foot poked out from under a blanket. The women screamed and ran into the hallway. Only Bottistelli and Filomena's boyfriend, Marco, stayed the doorway. According to Marco, the officer stepped inside and lifted the blanket. But Raeli later said he never looked at the body. Either way, the regular police arrived shortly after. Chief Monica Napoleoni of the Perugia murder squad was first on the scene, accompanied by an emergency doctor and a nurse. Napoleoni went to Filomena's room before entering anything else. And what she saw didn't sit right. The glass from the shattered window was lying on top of the scattered clothes, not underneath them. Shards were on the outside sill, too. To her, it looked like someone had ransacked the room first, then broken the window to make it look like a burglary. She hadn't even seen the body yet, and she already suspected the break in was staged. Next, she went to Meredith's room. Napoleon stayed by the door while the doctor rushed in and pulled back the blanket. Meredith was lying on the floor, partially covered. There was blood everywhere. Her throat had been cut. By the time Napoleoni stepped back outside, the press had already descended. Reporters and camera crews were gathering at the edge of the property. Most of the roommates and their friends were huddled together near the entrance, crying and holding each other. But Amanda Knox and Raphael Solichito weren't with them. They'd stepped off to the side, away from the cameras. According to Napoleoni, she watched as they pulled each other close, then started kissing. Whether Napoleoni actually saw them making out or just got a brief moment of comfort between two people in shock would itself become contested. But in that moment, it was enough to put Amanda and Raphael on her radar. And it was only the beginning. In the weeks and months ahead, Amanda and and Raphael's behavior would overshadow almost everything else about the case. What started as a murder investigation was about to become a media circus, a diplomatic crisis, and a legal nightmare all at once. And the truth that was about to get buried under all of the foreign. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy and this is True Crime Stories. Come back next time for part two on the murder of Meredith Kercher. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference and to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode early and ad free. We'll be back on Thursday. True Crime Stories is hosting hosted by me, Carter Roy and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benidon, Natalie Pertovsky, Lori Marinelli, Alyssa Fox, Terrell Wells, Cassidy Dillon and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening.
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Counterclock Podcast Narrator
On a quiet Saturday morning, five women walked into Elaine Bryant store and never came home. The man responsible for their deaths was heard and even described by the lone survivor. But despite nearly being caught, he vanished into thin air. In the years since, new technology, new investigators and new questions have changed what's possible, but the families are still waiting for answers. The evidence is still there. And this case isn't cold. It's unfinished. Listen to Counterclock, Season eight, wherever you get your podcasts.