Recently, Netflix released their original documentary, Amanda Knox . Per the usual Netflix documentaries, Amanda Knox is enthralling, emotional, and most importantly, revealing. On November 2, 2007, Meredith Kercher was found dead by her roommate, Amanda Knox, inside their home in Perugia, Italy. Amanda Knox, along with her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and Rudy Guede (a known burglar) were eventually charged for the crime.
Rudy Guede was found guilty for the murder and is currently serving out his sentence, but prosecutor Giuliano Mignini still insists that Knox orchestrated the whole thing. Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were eventually acquitted (twice) for the crime. But despite the acquittals, the overwhelming evidence that Guede acted alone, and the fact that there was contamination of the DNA evidence used against Knox, many still believe that she is guilty. But in reality, everything points to her being a victim. She is the victim of the media glamorizing a juicy story, an overreaching prosecutor, and a culture that likes to slut-shame and judge.
In the documentary, journalist Nick Pisa and Mignini reveal their deplorable actions. As Rolling Stone reported, in Netflix’s Amanda Knox Pisa explains his part in this story.
“A murder always gets people going. Bit of intrigue, big of mystery, a whodunit…What more do you want in a story?’ says Pisa with a shrug and a grin. He describes being the first journalist to get details of Kercher’s autopsy, which revealed little cuts and nicks from a knife to her neck, ‘almost as if someone had been taunting or torturing her.’ That’s when the prosecution and police, he said, began to call the crime a ‘sex game gone wrong,’ which he immediately wrote up and ‘managed to get out to the British press before anyone else.’”
And then, Mignini and the media were off to the races.
Headlines dubbed Amanda, “Foxy Knoxy.” So-called experts would analyze footage and go on programs and say, “look at her eyes.” Amanda Knox said it best in the Netflix documentary .
“There’s no trace of me in the room where Meredith was murdered…But you’re trying to find the answer in my eyes when the answer is right over there. You’re looking at me, why? These are my eyes, they’re not objective evidence. What’s more likely? That I get together this boyfriend that I’ve had [for five days] and this guy who I don’t even know his name — tell them to rape my roommate — and then let me stab her to death. Or, that a guy that regularly committed burglaries broke into my home, found Meredith, took advantage of her, killed her, and ran off.”
Pisa also admitted that the media didn’t focus on Guede, even after he was found guilty, because he wasn’t as interesting. But why, despite the evidence proving Knox and Sollecito’s innocence, would the prosecutor continue to focus on Amanda? From what the Netflix documentary reveals, he didn’t like her lifestyle and he enjoyed being a local hero.
Mignini smiles as he described people walking up to him on the streets and shaking his hand, and congratulating him. He also spoke of Amanda Knox’s supposed lifestyle with a snub attitude. Saying she was a girl that was “very uninhibited,” and that she would “bring boys home.” He then created a story based on this and described it in the film.
“If you could imagine a girl different from Amanda in every imaginable way, it would have been Meredith. That night let’s imagine what Meredith finds. She sees suddenly in her house Amanda, which is okay, but Sollecito and Rudy. And she’s like, ‘What?’ Meredith couldn’t take it anymore. She must have scolded Amanda for her lack of morals. Amanda must have felt humiliated, irritated. ‘So, you want to judge my morals so harshly? No I’m going to show you what will happen.’”
This was the prosecutor’s motive against Amanda Knox — his slut-shaming imagination. CBS also reported on the Amanda Knox documentary and the ridiculousness of Mignini.
“It is truly frightening to hear the prosecutor Mignini speak of his rationale for bringing charges against Knox and Sollecito, even though a third individual — an Ivory Coast immigrant and drug dealer, Rudy Guede — had already been tried and convicted for killing Kercher. Why did the self-proclaimed fan of Arthur Conan Doyle theorize that Knox was involved? Because, he says, Kercher’s body had been covered by a blanket, and only a woman would think to do such a thing.”
Not that it matters, but it was reported that Amanda Knox only had seven intimate partners. But if it was seven, or seven hundred, why was this even an equation in trying to solve the murder of poor Meredith? Later in the Netflix doc, Mignini took joy in describing how Amanda Knox would be judged by God in the afterlife, where there are no acquittals.
The documentary also reveals many instances on how the detectives and Mignini grossly mishandled the case, how Amanda Knox was abused while being questioned by authorities, and a long list of injustices that happened during the case.
After Netflix released Amanda Knox, there are many headlines still questioning her innocence, because her story is juicy. But the law found her innocent — twice. And all of the evidence indicates that. Many would like this case to be more of a mystery, so they can keep cranking out stories. But the truth is, according to the law and the evidence, Amanda Knox is innocent.
Meredith Kercher was the victim of a heinous crime committed by Rudy Guede. But as the Netflix documentary shows, Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox were also victims; victims of media sensationalism, societies that love to judge others’ lifestyle, and a prosecutor who judged Knox prematurely and ignored all of the evidence in front of him.
[Featured Image by Netflix]