Amanda Knox is reciting the age-appropriate version of her story that she tells her three-year-old daughter. 'Mommy went to Italy, she made some friends and then someone hurt her friend, and then they thought Mommy hurt her friend, so they put Mommy in jail. And then Mommy was in jail for a long time and she was very sad, but then they realised Mommy didn't hurt her friend.'
It's a drastically simplified telling of one of the most high-profile murder cases of the 21st century, which saw Knox go from unknown 20-year-old US exchange student in Perugia, Italy, to one of the most vilified women on the planet in 2007. She was accused of murdering Meredith Kercher, 21, an exchange student from Surrey, in their shared apartment, in a drug-fuelled sex game gone wrong.
Knox served four years, alongside her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, before she was acquitted in 2015. (A conviction for slander has been upheld for statements Knox signed, she says, after 53 hours of police questioning, which implicated a barman called Patrick Lumumba in the murder. She was sentenced to time served during her four-year imprisonment, but is still fighting to clear her name).
Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast national who was already known to the police, was convicted of the sexual assault and murder of Kercher and sentenced to 16 years (he served 13). But the world rarely focuses on Kercher’s actual killer. A New York Post headline in 2020 read: ‘Man who killed Amanda Knox’s roommate freed on community service’.
Instead, the fixation around the case has always centred on ‘Foxy Knoxy’, the tabloid moniker taken from her MySpace, which followed Knox throughout the trial and beyond and was used to reinforce the idea that she was a demonic sex fiend. The mud stuck and ‘Did she or didn’t she?’ is still the first question many people ask when her name comes up. ‘This is an ongoing struggle’, she says, her voice wobbling. ‘It still hurts.’
Now, she has written a book, or rather, another book telling her story. Her first – a memoir, Waiting To Be Heard, published in 2013, detailed the miscarriage of justice she faced. Her latest, Free, is about reintegrating into society and the unlikely relationship she built with the prosecutor who sent her to prison. ‘It is a story about who I really am and what I really think and how I’ve been able to process the experience,’ she says.
Now 37, Knox works as a writer and advocate for the wrongfully convicted and lives with her husband Christopher Robinson, a novelist, in the Seattle area. They have two children aged one and three and, although her current life will be familiar to most toddler parents (Bluey; 5am wake-up times), a decade on from her acquittal she still receives a steady stream of abuse. When the world found out she was pregnant she was inundated with messages from people saying they hoped her baby would die so she would know how Kercher’s family felt.
Despite this, she’s warm, eloquent and shrewd, and explains how the fact we never hear much about Guede is typical of the double standards women face. ‘He’s out of prison but he’s also on trial [again] now for having sexually assaulted another young woman. If people really cared about what happened to Meredith they would be following the person who we know did it, that’s where I am so frustrated with this entire thing. People saying what they care about is Meredith and what happened to Meredith but what they really care about is hating a woman. That’s why this case became huge. Unfortunately, young women get murdered every day and no one gives a shit until it’s another young woman who is accused of the crime.’
Does she think her nickname shaped public perception of her? ‘Categorically yes, because I was no longer a person. I was a cartoon character… “Foxy Knoxy” was a product being sold to people based on this idea of women hating women and it was absolutely used to vilify me,’ she says. ‘Not only was I accused of a man’s crime, but I was then made to stand in for this male idea that all women hate each other.’
She reportedly received $4m (£2.6m) for Waiting To Be Heard, which she used to pay off huge legal debts. Did she get more for this book? ‘No, not even close. I wish,’ she says. She plans to spend profits from this book on her children and her future. But it is precisely this that irks some people about Knox – her decision to work on and profit from various projects related to what happened, despite Kercher’s family having spoken about what they perceive as her lack of sensitivity around their loss. Does she worry the publication of Free will elicit a similar reaction?
‘I hope it doesn’t. Whenever I’ve talked about my experiences, I’ve been talking about my experiences. I legitimately went through a nightmare and had to survive a nightmare that I did not choose, so I sympathise that they have a hard time with me talking about my story, because they associate it with Meredith’s tragedy. But it’s also my tragedy and I matter, too. In the same way that Meredith matters, I matter. My life matters, so I don’t feel any confusion or guilt or regret for telling my story and trying to make the world a slightly better place in doing so.’
Most recently, Kercher’s family commented on news that Knox is executive producing a drama serialisation of her case for Hulu, expected later this year. Kercher’s sister Stephanie said she found it ‘difficult to understand’ how the series ‘serves any purpose’, while the Kercher family’s lawyer told The Times last year, ‘This continuous stirring is a demonstration of a lack of sensitivity. She earns money, obtains visibility on the television after many years… It seems that Knox does not want people to forget about this story and does all she can to keep it alive.’
When I ask Knox whether their concern has shaped the way the series is being produced she says she hasn’t heard what they’ve said about it, which is surprising, as their condemnation was widely covered last year. I read her Kercher’s sister’s comments and she responds, ‘I hope that they’ll watch it and they’ll see what purpose it serves, because I’m being very intentional when I tell my story.
‘The thing that I’m afraid of is that they’ve never even tried to know what my story is, or what my perspective is, they’ve just written me off. And it is my hope that they give me a chance to have some perspective that is worth having, because I’m grieving Meredith too. I’m not grieving Meredith like they are, but Meredith is now a permanent part of my life.’
Knox’s case is often seen as one of the sparks that ignited the true-crime boom. A year after Making A Murderer, Netflix released a documentary about her trial, which she was interviewed for. The genre’s fascination with cases involving violence against women has faced plenty of criticism.
Knox sees both sides. She thinks it’s good to see people engaging with the criminal justice system and says it’s in the public interest to make sure it’s working properly, but there’s a fine line. ‘We are being entertained by the worst experiences of people’s lives, very often without their consent,’ she says.
She gets a handful of women and men reaching out to her every week who feel they’ve been vilified, including many high-profile individuals. She won’t name-drop but speaks of her friendship with Monica Lewinsky, who was at the centre of her own media storm after her affair with then US President Bill Clinton in the ’90s. To young women today dealing with intense public scrutiny, whether from a legal battle or the court of social media, she offers two pieces of advice. Firstly: do not underestimate character assassination. ‘A good story is a compelling story and [Foxy Knoxy] was a compelling character that people latched on to – and so the evidence didn’t really matter,’ she says. She also tells them, ‘Remember, that this is not about you.’
The question of how the world should respond to Knox is complex. ‘Why don’t you disappear?’ is a criticism she’ll be all too familiar with. Of course, nothing can ever compare to the horrific fate of Kercher and, at times, Knox’s unflinching discussion of her own victimhood can feel jarring. But should that discomfort negate her right to speak? Women are relentlessly scrutinised, their narratives twisted to fit a misogynistic machine that delights in tearing them down. We know wrongful convictions, media sensationalism and gendered character assassinations persist. So, if we care about exposing these, why wouldn’t we listen to someone who’s lived through it?
‘We’re still in that world that is gleefully tearing down women,’ Knox says – but, she adds, it’s more sophisticated now. ‘If you look at the Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohans of the world, everyone recognised that it was trashy to consume the worst moments of these people’s lives and to tear them down. Now it comes in the form of, "I am so socially righteous in tearing down this person and that's why I’m doing it".'
She does, however, note the very fact that she's given an opportunity to speak 'is a sign that maybe things are changing for the better. But, goddamn, I've had to fight for it.'
'Free: My Search For Meaning' by Amanda Knox (Headline) is out now