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- [00:01]
Narrator/Host
From globalization to innovation sustainability to market
- [00:05]
Manveen Rana
volatility, there's always more than one side to a story. Explore different perspectives on today's most important
- [00:11]
Narrator/Host
business and economic issues with the Flipside podcast from Barclays Investment Bank.
- [00:16]
Manveen Rana
Hear two research analysts in a lively
- [00:18]
Narrator/Host
debate and get insights from every angle
- [00:21]
Manveen Rana
to further inform your view. Listen to the Flipside on your favorite platform.
- [00:26]
Helen Rumbelo
A better Help ad.
- [00:28]
Manveen Rana
Hold on one second.
- [00:32]
Helen Rumbelo
I just need to. What if you had a room where no one interrupts? No notifications, no expectations, just space to talk with. BetterHelp therapy happens in a space that's yours. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy. From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story on Sunday. I'm Manveen Rana.
- [01:14]
Manveen Rana
I think anyone who lived through 2007 in the Western world will know the name of Amanda Knox. She was portrayed as the villain at the center of probably one of the most sensational murder trials of the last half century.
- [01:35]
Narrator/Host
A 22 year old American student, Amanda Knox, was found guilty in Italy of murdering her British roommate. She was immediately sentenced to 26 years in an Italian prison. The judges and jurors had no doubt. Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Selechito, described as immature and probably high on pot, killed Kercher in the heat of a sex game gone wrong.
- [02:00]
Manveen Rana
For many years. As the trial and then the appeal ran on, that's about four years in total, she was top of the news with ever more salacious details spun around her by the Italian prosecutors, aided and abetted by the world's press.
- [02:17]
Helen Rumbelo
The Helen Rumbelo, features writer at the Times, Amanda Knox's story was one that she'd followed for years and then she interviewed her.
- [02:28]
Manveen Rana
It's quite surreal when you finally meet someone like that and speak to them normally, you know, person to person,
- [02:39]
Helen Rumbelo
attacked by the press, vilified by the public, and wrongfully convicted of murder. Amanda Knox has explored the many injustices she faced in a book and a Netflix documentary. But is she right to turn it into comedy? The story today amanda knox, why I've turned my life into an edinburgh fringe show. Helen, you've recently interviewed Amanda Knox. What was she like?
- [03:40]
Manveen Rana
When I spoke to her, you know, she was actually in Edinburgh and she is wearing this so granny knitted jumper she picked up in a charity shop. She's very cerebral. She thinks a lot, she reads a lot. She rarely wears makeup in her private life. She lives in this remote island off the coast of Seattle. She's not that smiley and she doesn't supplicate. She's not a kind of typical people pleaser, you know, she's a little bit unconventional. She has this restless intellect and I think in a man that wouldn't be used against her as much as it is. I find her in many ways very likable. She's very open and she's very self aware.
- [04:26]
Helen Rumbelo
How did she seem when she was talking to you?
- [04:29]
Manveen Rana
She struggled all her adult life with the burden of what this case has done to her and how it has essentially forced her to continually re prosecute her innocence. And not only her innocence, but I think she feels now this moral imperative not just to campaign for others that have been wrongfully convicted, but to campaign for young women who she believes are judged and punished way too harshly.
- [05:14]
Helen Rumbelo
Even now she's now turning her hand to comedy at the Edinburgh fringe. That's one of the reasons you were talking to her. When you first heard about that, what was your reaction?
- [05:26]
Manveen Rana
I think everyone who does know this name, Amanda Knox, would have a immediate, instinctive, emotional reaction to the news that she's planning to do a comedy show. And obviously her critics, of which there are many, are extremely angry. Myself, as someone who is much more open minded towards Amanda Knox, even so, it was a little gasp of is she brave? Is she crazy? Does she understand the full implications of launching this show in Edinburgh, right behind enemy lines, as it were, in the country that's always been the most antagonistic towards her. So I think I did realize that everyone needs to take a pause and just really reflect on what is actually a really interesting ethical dilemma here. I mean, I think you could almost teach a sort of university course in ethics about the rights and wrongs of this latest project.
- [06:31]
Helen Rumbelo
We'll come on to that in a moment. Before we do, though, for people who don't remember this case, who perhaps weren't old enough to see the headlines at the time, just take us back to 2007, remind us about the moment that made Amanda Knox famous, or infamous, as the case may be.
- [06:51]
Manveen Rana
Yes, so she's this 20 year old languages student who's come from the University of Washington to live in Perugia for a year and she's found this nice place to live, which is a flat in the Villa della Pergola with two slightly older Italian women who are trainee lawyers. And this other student, Meredith Kircher, who's a student at the University of Leeds, she's 21. She's also on this kind of exchange year. They're having what every parent really would enjoy about their child going off into the world. Adventure, curiosity, it's. It's, you know, it's fun.
- [07:37]
Helen Rumbelo
All of that sort of is, you know, an idyllic year away as a student abroad. When did it all go wrong?
- [07:45]
Manveen Rana
So this is the morning of November 2, 2007. Two Italian women are away from the flat for a public holiday. Amanda Knox is away from the flat with her Italian boyfriend, Raphael Solicito. She returns home that morning and she's concerned. She sees blood stains in the bathroom and Meredith's door is locked. And Meredith is not answering her phone. Subsequently, Raphael Sodechito calls the police. When police finally entered Meredith's bedroom, they found she had been murdered in the most gruesome way, and she had subsequently been found to have been sexually assaulted as well. This very quickly becomes a very serious crime scene and also the focus of the world's media. Two young women, one American, one British. And the story only ever gets more lurid and salacious from there.
- [09:14]
Helen Rumbelo
How does she become a suspect?
- [09:16]
Manveen Rana
I think when you actually dissect the case against Amanda Knox, it boils down to largely her behavior. She would say she was in shock, she was stunned. But the world's media and the police saw someone that was quite blank. I think the most famous media images of her outside the apartment. Sollecito kisses HER I did actually look back at that footage just a few days ago, and I can see that she is looking extremely troubled. It's not like they're giggling and so on. But later on, the police will then portray her as acting extremely strangely under interrogation. And those facts are again, vehemently now denied by Amanda Knox. She is called in for essentially questioning as a witness. But her treatment at hands of the police is now become almost a case study in what not to do. She goes in on November 5 for interrogation. She ends up being interrogated for 53 hours straight with no lawyer. She only actually sees a lawyer many days later, on November 11th. She's a young student and she's actually only been in the country a matter of weeks at this point. Her Italian is shaky at best, and they use this now quite discredited technique called the Reid technique, which is a very aggressive form of questioning in which they also introduce fabricated evidence to Amanda Knox. So she's kind of getting not only quite, you know, intimidated, she's getting false information about what the prosecution believes. So, yeah, actually, in 2019, the European Court of Human Rights say the police did violate her human rights in that treatment.
- [11:16]
Helen Rumbelo
The way the police Described her unusual behavior as, you know, they would have put it. It sort of became a big part of the story. Just remind us of what they said she was doing when she was being interrogated.
- [11:30]
Manveen Rana
For people that know the case, they'll know that this is one of the most infamous details about it, that Amanda Knox allegedly did a cartwheel during that first very brutal police interrogation.
- [11:44]
Narrator/Host
Your roommates, your boyfriend, the cops, they all say the same thing. They thought you were responding weird. There's the kissing, you know, there's the repeated nonchalance or what they see as non grief.
- [11:59]
News Reporter
Why I reacted differently than the way people expected a young woman to react. But it's unreasonable to assume guilt based upon a reaction.
- [12:15]
Manveen Rana
This is really the creation of Foxy Knoxy. So very quickly that term gets applied to her. And Amanda Knox will say that is now her forever alter ego. Foxy Knoxy was actually a nickname applied to her when she was this child back in Seattle playing soccer. But obviously the Italians see it as basis for this, what becomes absolutely allurate kind of fantasy about her, that she's called Lucifeena, the she devil. She's this sexually rapacious psychopath that is involved in satanic sex games.
- [12:56]
Narrator/Host
American student Amanda Knox has been described as a satanic, diabolical she devil.
- [13:02]
Manveen Rana
A lawyer asked the court whether Amanda
- [13:04]
Narrator/Host
Knox was the mild looking fresh, fake birthday they saw in front of them or a woman devoted to lust, drugs and alcohol.
- [13:11]
Manveen Rana
You know, the reports only ever get more and more lurid. There's a lot of interplay between the press and the Italian prosecutors whose case is continually leaking out. I mean, I think when you look back now, you realize there really hasn't been a kind of MeToo reckoning of what went on there. You know, she was extremely young. Her parents say she was really quite naive, and she was somehow made to be the world's punchback for a crime of male violence.
- [13:54]
Helen Rumbelo
And it's so interesting because, you know, this all takes place in Italy, which at the time, you know, perhaps its attitude towards women was going through a bit of a transformation. You had a country that sort of, you know, worships the Madonna, but at the same time its political scene included Bunga Bunga with its prime minister. So it sort of, it clearly had a very judgmental view of where. How women should behave. And a lot of that is then reflected in the British press, which in itself has. I think we'd look back now and think inappropriate views of women in the public eye just remind us of how bad, I suppose the hounding Got.
- [14:33]
Manveen Rana
It's impossible for any of us, I think, to understand what it's like to be the person at the center of literally the world's opprobrium. Even now, you know, nearly two decades on, still gets death threats, rape threats, you know, are you going to kill your baby? You know, you know, obviously reduced since then, but at that peak, you know, the way she was portrayed as this kind of, as you say, it was this, you know, very almost religiously connotated idea of her as this so evil because she was so sexual. You know, that was this kind of, that was the image portrayed about her. And she was only 20 from that moment when she was arrested, she never came out of prison. So she was immediately isolated in an Italian criminal justice system very, very young. I mean, I honestly, I don't think any of us know what that could be like.
- [15:38]
Narrator/Host
After 14 months, at last, Amanda Knox is on trial for the murder of the girl she called a friend. Casually dressed and looking relaxed. This is where her fate will be decided. And alongside the American student in a Perugia courtroom, a her former boyfriend, Raffaelli Solecito. The pair accused of causing the horrific injuries that killed Meredith Kercher in the home she shared with Knox.
- [16:03]
Helen Rumbelo
And this played out at trial and eventually Amanda Knox and her boyfriend are charged with murder. Just remind us what happened, I think
- [16:15]
Manveen Rana
all the way through. Amanda Knox believed that her innocence would prevail, but she was sentenced to 26 years and her boyfriend Rafael, 25.
- [16:27]
News Reporter
Good evening from Perugia, Italy, where tonight an American college student has been found guilty of murder in a case that has sparked international headlines and controversy. It was a stunning verdict in what's been called Italy's trial of the century. And for 22 year old Amanda Knox and her family from Seattle, it was a devastating loss.
- [16:50]
Manveen Rana
And at that point, I think, you know, she became absolutely desperate and really, really did struggle to kind of see a way to survive.
- [17:00]
Helen Rumbelo
What was the basis of the prosecution's case against her?
- [17:04]
Manveen Rana
They had spun this story about her being involved in these satanic sex gains with Meredith Kircher. I mean, it really is. To repeat it now is sort of to honor it with, you know, too much logic. What we would now think is, you know, there's an extremely obvious murder suspect, this character, Rudy Gede, whose DNA was all over the crime scene, who then fled the country to Germany.
- [17:39]
Narrator/Host
The judges and jurors had no doubt Knox and her boyfriend killed Kercher in the heat of a sex game gone wrong. Caught up in an assault on the woman Led by a drifter named Rudy Guede, who was convicted in a separate trial.
- [17:54]
Manveen Rana
You couldn't have been demonstrably more guilty or have acted more guilty. And yet the Italian prosecutors found a way to been this young woman. Extremely unlikely scenario for which you would imagine you would need a huge amount of evidence to support. But no, this young woman, her friend and flatmate, somehow orchestrated a sort of bizarre, jealous sex game that went wrong.
- [18:37]
Helen Rumbelo
And what happened to this man, Rudy Gede, who, as you say, you know, there was a lot of evidence at the crime scene that implicated him.
- [18:44]
Manveen Rana
Yes. I mean, he had only days before been found by police to have broken into a nursery school with a knife. And then obviously couldn't have been more overwhelming. Forensic evidence, you know, bloody handprints, his DNA everywhere. So he has a sort of, again, a very strange, what they call a fast track trial, which was held without the press there, and he ends up serving only 13 years for that crime and actually is now currently being held for the sexual assault of another woman since he's been released.
- [19:23]
Helen Rumbelo
As you said, Amanda Knox was sentenced to 26 years for the killing of Meredith Kercher. She didn't serve that time. Just tell us what happened with the legal process after she's convicted.
- [19:39]
Manveen Rana
And then two years later, on appeal, her conviction is overturned. That's back in 2011 as she returns to the United States. But she's subsequently tried again and she's definitively acquitted by Italy's highest court in 2015.
- [19:58]
News Reporter
There is relief this morning for Amanda Knox. Yesterday, Italy's highest court overturned her murder conviction. Knox breathed a sigh of relief last night outside her home in Seattle. I just wanted to say that I'm incredibly grateful for what has happened, for the justice I've received, for the support that I've had for. From everyone from my family, from my friends, to strangers, to people like you. You saved my life and I'm so grateful.
- [20:33]
Helen Rumbelo
Despite being acquitted and exonerated back in 2015, it feels like her public image never really had that same cathartic moment of having her, her innocence reinstated. It does feel like she's always struggled in terms of the way the world still views her.
- [20:55]
Manveen Rana
Exactly. I think the stories about Foxy Noxy were so extreme and so salacious and so, you know, it's a kind of fever dream that we all experienced. I think it's actually genuinely very hard to shake off. And I think the other thing is going back to what I said about her being this slightly kind of unapologetic figure. I think she has got this very courageous stance, you could say in some ways in that she's as guilty as you or I of this crime and she should be allowed to live the life that she wants. And I think that's quite interesting to sort of psychoanalyze in a way. But a lot of the public find that very, very uncomfortable. They want her to go away. I mean, this is the kind of words they use. You know, she should crawl into a hole and stay there. She should shrivel up and die somewhere. She should be bound by a vow of silence. And I think we do actually find her continual public presence uncomfortable. And there's, there's good reasons for that that we can talk about with the Kercher family. But I think there's a separate element of it. She makes us feel a little bit uncomfortable about the way we behaved.
- [22:27]
Helen Rumbelo
Coming up, a gruesome murder followed by a miscarriage of justice. Justice. It's a tale of tragedy and high drama. But should it be a comedy show? And how do Meredith Kirch's family feel about it? We'll be back in just a moment.
- [22:58]
News Reporter
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- [23:55]
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- [24:54]
Helen Rumbelo
Helen, you've been talking To Amanda Knox. Why has she decided to turn her story and the ordeal she went through, why has she decided to turn that into a comedy show?
- [25:08]
Manveen Rana
Yeah, I mean, this is very interesting, isn't that. I think what happened was she has befriended a few American comedians over recent years, doing podcasts and things like that. Nikki Glaser is probably the most famous of them. And I think she started to see comedy as a different way of exploring deepened art material. Because, of course, it has become the case in the last few decades that comedians are increasingly using trauma, whether it's their cancer diagnosis or a turmoil diagnosis or, you know, being bullied as a child or coming out, you know, using this trauma as material for their own comedy. And they do it, I think, probably with the idea of helping others. What remains to be seen is whether Amanda Knox can take such dark and painful material and managed to present it through this comedic vehicle in a responsible way. We don't know that yet.
- [26:13]
Helen Rumbelo
And, Helen, you know, you mentioned some of the comedians she's been talking to. Monica Lewinsky has been involved, has been a producer of one of her documentaries, but they're clearly friends. And Monica Lewinsky has used humor to reestablish her public presence and to rebuild her reputation. I suppose it's just so much harder when there's a murder at the heart of, you know, what made you famous? What is this show actually going to be about? Does it tackle that?
- [26:43]
Manveen Rana
Monica Lewinsky is this friend and is quite supportive of Amanda Knox and often checks in on her when things get difficult. I think they both experience that very sensational, the world hating them as these young women accused of, you know, acts that were, again, quite sexualized in both cases. And they also experienced that, really, at the beginning of social media. And, you know, you could sort of argue they're both kind of patient zero of this extremely public and kind of international level of shame poured onto these young women. But, yes, of course, Monica Lewinsky uses her social media in this very playful way, and people love it. But in this case, it's very different, isn't it? Because we have the Kercher family. Meredith Kercher's parents have passed away, but she has siblings. And they have continued to say that they find Amanda Knox's projects of various kinds, but particularly this latest one, unwelcome, upsetting, exploitative. So there's two questions here, I think. One is that, you know, is comedy the right genre? And the second one would be this very complex ethical question of what is the right way to behave, given that the Kirch family disapprove so strongly? I would say your reaction to that depends on your ability to separate the fates of Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. Amanda Knox argues that they are completely separate and that, you know, she is wrongfully convicted of this crime. And like any other wrongfully convicted person, she should be able to talk about that trauma in a way that does actually have a public interest, because she says that what happened to her still hasn't been processed, and still women are being very unfairly treated by the criminal justice system. That's a difficult moral question to answer. Amanda Knox does make this point, which is that, you know, let's say the Guildford Four or other miscarriages to justice, they can talk without any loss of dignity to the original victims of the crime. And Amanda Knox says in her defense that she never uses this comedy material ever to disrespect Meredith Kercher. That's not her intention. Amanda Knox told me that for anyone nervous about the idea of her doing comedy, that this show is explicitly about motherhood. Obviously, the case is used as a context to the show because that is the context of Amanda Knox's life. But it's much more about the way that her mother steadfastly supported her, both saved her from the murder conviction and saved her life by maintaining that she mattered and had worth at her darkest times. And Amanda Knox's own daughter, who she worries about coming into a world that treats women unjustly.
- [30:12]
Helen Rumbelo
And there is obviously, you know, a great feminist reason to be talking about this and questioning the narrative that built up around her. At the same time, if she is aware that it's causing more trauma to the family, to the siblings of Meredith Kirch. I mean, when you talk to her about that, is that something that worries her?
- [30:33]
Manveen Rana
It does worry her. And I think that that's something that is appealing about Amanda Knox, is that people think of her as this cold, oblivious person. She's not at all. I mean, she can rehearse the attacks and critiques of herself more than anyone. She says that ever since 2007, she has this jury living in her head, you know, calling her narcissistic, calling her exploitative. And she's had to work quite hard at every single encounter she's ever had to justify continuing to live as Amanda Knox. But a lot of people would say she should, you know, oh, change your name, change your identity, go live somewhere else. But she continues to say that, look, I've done nothing wrong and that this is my own story to tell, and that Just because Meredith Kircher was killed doesn't mean there was another type of injustice. It's obviously not the same level in any way, but it's not a kind of competition or a zero sum game.
- [31:39]
Helen Rumbelo
Does she worry, though, that people will think this is distasteful? I mean, you know, Edinburgh is a tough crowd at the best of times, but a lot of people will just think the idea of her doing a comedy show about this is. It's just in bad taste.
- [31:51]
Manveen Rana
I think that's a really valid argument, especially here in Britain where, you know, there's always been much more protectiveness about the Kircher family. And probably, you know, here we are again, you know, much more inhibited about, you know, going and saying and doing things that might tread on other people's very, very sensitive, raw feelings. I sometimes wonder whether she understands enough exactly the kind of reception she may face at Edinburgh. This is going to be the toughest crowd I think probably any comedian has faced. The front row will be packed out with tabloid reporters and they'll be heckling, if not in person, then in print. And I think it's not just that. There will be an awful lot of good faith critics. You know, I think the bad faith critics are the ones that sort of still believe in her guilt and foxy nutsy and all the rest of it. But there's some really genuine good faith critics that say, you know, they completely believe that she's exonerated. They completely believe that she was treated appallingly, and they feel for her in that her life is essentially now forever stamped by this. But that in deference to the Kerta family, it is behoves her to stay quiet in this way.
- [33:27]
Helen Rumbelo
And Helen, having spoken to her about this, you know, one on one, did it change your opinion of Amanda Knox and of the idea of her doing a comedy show?
- [33:40]
Manveen Rana
Yes. I mean, I haven't spoken to the Kirch family and very few people have, but I try and hold their views in balance, too. But I think when you speak to Amanda Knox, I was, as much as anyone influenced by the total shaming that she experienced, this sort of annihilation of self she experienced back then in 2007. And I think it made me reflect myself as a young woman at the time, how completely judgmental I was on her behavior and how easily I was influenced by that extremely sexist portrayal of her. I do think that she represents almost this Jungian shadow about us and the. That we need to confront that past somehow, some way, whether this is the vehicle it just remains to be seen.
- [34:42]
Helen Rumbelo
That was Helen Rumbelo, features writer for the Times, and you can read her piece Amanda Knox, why I've Turned My Life into an Edinburgh Comedy show@thetimes.com with a subscription. The producer and sound designer today was Dave Creasy. The executive producer was Edward Drummond. I'm Manveen Rana and we'll be back tomorrow with all the latest from the local elections. Do join us then.
- [35:19]
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- [35:20]
Manveen Rana
Hablas espanol?
- [35:22]
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- [35:59]
News Reporter
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