Amanda Knox posted short stories on her MySpace page about drugging and raping a young woman and photographing a woman in bed without her knowledge.

The page, on which she is known as “Foxy Knoxy”, is filled with photographs of Ms Knox with her friends and accounts of her trips in Europe. It also states that she is single even though she had been going out with her fellow suspect, Raffaele Sollecito. In one story, called Baby Brother, two brothers discuss the rape.

Colin Gregg, a former friend who once took Ms Knox to the school prom, told The Times that she had changed radically after leaving school.

“The Amanda I knew at prep would never have done such a thing, but in the three years between when I last saw her there and when I saw her at university she changed so much that I cannot honestly say one way or another what I believe she could or could not do.

“The girl I knew and was friends with was a sweet, innocent girl who loved playing soccer and singing in choir. But people change, especially once they leave a rather sheltered preparatory school and enter university.”

Ms Knox, 20, is studying German, Italian and creative writing at the Seattle campus of the University of Washington. She was educated at Seattle Prep, a $12,000-a-year Jesuit college.

The University of Washington is a quiet and leafy English-style campus with modern red brick buildings, a statue of George Washington, and a plaza dominated by the grand, almost cathedral-like Henry Suzzallo Library, where Ms Knox spent hours studying before moving to Italy.

Students said she was well liked and had been on the “Dean’s list” in her junior year. However, most seemed unaware of the drama in Europe, largely ignoring racks of the university newspaper, The Daily, which had the story on the far left of its front page.

“I hadn’t heard anything about it until now,” said one postgraduate student, who did not want to be named. “I don’t read the newspaper.”

Jonathan Evans, an economics student, said: “She has got a huge number of friends over here who are all completely shocked and baffled. This doesn’t even come close to the character of Amanda. She’s a person who loves others, she doesn’t have a mean streak in her whatsoever.”

Mr Sollecito told police that he had known Ms Knox for two weeks and that they had started to sleep together almost immediately. The 24-year-old, from Giovinazzo, southern Italy, is the son of a prominent urologist. The third suspect, Patrick Lumumba, came to Italy in 1988 and holds an official resident’s permit. He has a Polish wife and a two-year-old son.

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