Sometime after 8.30pm on November 1 the full horror of her predicament must
have hit home for Meredith Kercher.
The 21-year-old British student was far from her loved ones, in a room at a
cottage in Perugia, northern Italy. A knife was at her throat. Someone was
forcing her face into the floor, or possibly against the wall. Someone was
trying to violate her.
The knife cut her, then cut her again. A third stab left her bleeding heavily.
Blood became smeared two metres up the wall. Severing the carotid artery in
the neck usually causes very rapid death, but the knife had missed that
blood vessel.
Meredith took about 10 minutes to die, according to an Italian judicial report
seen by The Sunday Times.
Yesterday her body finally began its journey home. It was taken in a plain
coffin of light-coloured wood - there were no flowers and no family or
friends to accompany it - by hearse from Perugia to Rome’s main Fiumicino
airport where it was placed in a morgue in the Alitalia cargo section.
The coffin was due to be flown out on a scheduled flight to London at 2pm
today; but at the last minute it was caught up in another twist in this
extraordinary murder case. Lawyers for Diya Lumumba, a bar manager in
Perugia and one of the three people suspected of sexually abusing and
murdering Meredith, lodged an emergency request with judicial authorities to
stop its departure.
They demanded a new autopsy after the prosecution had brought forward the
estimated time of Meredith’s death by several hours to between 8.30pm and
10.30pm on the fatal night. The timing of her death is becoming crucial -
because Lumumba claims to have an alibi for later in the evening.
This weekend Amanda Knox, an American student who shared the cottage with
Meredith; Raffaele Sollecito, the Italian boyfriend of Knox; and Lumumba
remain in prison. They are all suspected of being involved in the killing.
They deny the allegations and Lumumba claims that he was not even present at
the house where Meredith died.
But investigators believe all three participated in a murder that was far more
brutal and sordid than previously reported. They are also investigating
whether it was premeditated. A shop assistant from Rome claims to have
received by accident a text message two days before the murder saying: “As
far as I am concerned tomorrow or this evening Meredith dies.” Forensic
evidence also suggests that a fourth man may have been involved.
How did such a terrible fate befall an ordinary British student on the sort of
exchange programme followed by so many others?
MEREDITH was a well-liked student from Leeds University who had grown up in
south London. She had joined the Erasmus exchange programme and in the
summer set off to spend a year in Perugia. It is a pretty, medieval hill
town, although not without a darker side.
Drugs and tensions between different communities can be a problem. But in many
ways it is an idyllic place.
Meredith ended up sharing a cottage with Knox, who had also come to study
abroad, but she was wary of her new friend. The British student spoke to her
father, John, on the telephone most days and confided her uncertainties.
“Meredith spoke to me about Amanda in a joking way, as a girl who was sure
of herself and a bit eccentric,” he said, according to testimony seen by The
Sunday Times.
“Amanda boasted about being a great singer and said that if she’d had a
guitar, she would have shown Meredith her talent.”
Meredith also told her father about Knox’s busy private life, remarking
caustically that “Amanda arrived only a week ago and she already has a
boyfriend”.
To Sophie Purton, her British friend, Meredith also expressed concern at the
men Knox brought home. Purton told investigators: “Meredith told me that
Amanda would sometimes bring men back to their house. I don’t know how many
there were. Meredith mentioned one man in particular who lives in an
internet cafe . . . [she] thought the man was strange.”
Knox is the daughter of a business executive and a teacher, and had attended a
Jesuit school and the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle. Friends
there say she was outgoing and well balanced.
Kara Joy Davis Maxwell, for whom Knox was literally the girl next door at
university last year, said: “There were lots of guys in her life, but she
was a typical student and nothing was too serious.” However, others admitted
that Knox had a wilder side.
Another UW student, who did not want to be named, said that Amanda had a
string of nocturnal “hook-ups” with fellow students which meant little to
her. “She lived for herself, for the moment, for fun,” he said.
The medical student, now 20, had attended a notorious party hosted by Knox
last June where fights broke out and the police were called. Knox was fined
£150 and bound over to keep the peace. “She loved all the excitement and the
notoriety,” the student said. “UW parties can get pretty wild: students love
their beer and their bongs [cannabis pipes]. So how out of control do you
think they have to get before not only the police are called but they issue
a citation?”
Soon after arriving in Perugia, Knox struck up a relationship with Sollecito,
a young Italian also from a good family. By his own account, Sollecito’s
relationship with Amanda was “intense”, beginning on the night of the day
they first met.
In a written interview with The Sunday Times from jail, Sollecito said he had
met Amanda at a concert. “We liked each other immediately,” he said. “I went
up to her and she invited me that evening to go to the bar where she worked.
“From the outset Amanda and I had an intense, albeit brief, relationship,
right up to the evening of the tragic event I’ve been linked to.” To his
lawyers, Sollecito confided that he had had only one “serious” girlfriend
before meeting Amanda and that they made love “in a very traditional way”.
Sollecito also described himself as “an anxious person” who smoked cannabis
“on every day off and every time I need to”. He said that he had always
carried a knife since the age of 13, which he used to make marks on trees.
“I have a collection of knives and I also have swords which haven’t been
sharpened. I have a passion for knives,” he said.
Into this strange gathering of people stepped Meredith, and one evening in
mid-October she was invited by Knox to Le Chic bar where Knox worked. As
Meredith walked in, her gaze was drawn to a bottle of Polish vodka behind
the counter. “Oh, you’ve got Polish vodka,” she exclaimed, according to a
legal source last week who is familiar with testimony in the case.
Lumumba, the bar manager who was known to all as Patrick, took notice and
started chatting to her. Meredith told him: “I used to work in England as a
barmaid, I know how to make mojitos with that vodka.” Lumumba, according to
police documents, was born in Zaire in May 1963, which makes him 44 - not 37
as has been previously reported.
He was rather taken by the much younger Meredith, according to some testimony.
The following Sunday, Lumumba asked Knox to bring Meredith along for an
evening of free pizza. On that occasion, Lumumba again spoke to Meredith.
“Why don’t you come back and make mojitos with that Polish vodka one
evening?” he asked her.
According to Lumumba’s later testimony, these were the only two occasions on
which he met Meredith, apart from a brief greeting in the street. Knox’s
testimony, however, is very different: she said that Lumumba had become
“infatuated” with Meredith.
Prosecutors believe that his lust, and the drug-fuelled passions of Knox and
Sollecito, ultimately led to the terrible climax of sex and murder. On
November 1 Sollecito called on Knox at the cottage at 1pm or 2pm. They spent
to afternoon together smoking cannabis, according to a reconstruction of
events by Judge Claudia Matteini. By his own admission Sollecito liked to
try “risky things”, and Knox once wrote on her Facebook entry: “I love new
situations. . . The bigger and scarier the rollercoaster, the better.”
At about 8.30pm, Lumumba sent a text message to Knox, telling her there was no
need for her to turn up to work that evening. Knox replied shortly
afterwards: “See you later.” Exactly what that meant is now disputed - was
it literal or just a casual remark. Knox has testified that she went to meet
Lumumba at about 9pm and brought him to the cottage. Investigators believe
that Sollecito was also there, but both he and Lumumba deny being at the
house that evening.
Investigators suspect that Meredith became caught up in the others’ attempt to
fulfil their dark desires. “There are no doubts that there was desire to try
a new sensation for [Sollecito] and [Knox], while for [Lumumba] there was
the desire to have sex with a girl who had turned him down,” states the
judicial report.
A senior investigator told The Sunday Times that Meredith may have played
along with Lumumba at first. “It’s possible that she then saw the situation
degenerating. Shemay have threatened to denounce Lumumba and accused Amanda
of bringing him into the house,” the source said.
Knox initially denied being at the house, then admitted that she had been
there but not involved in the killing. She said that Lumumba and Meredith
had gone into the latter’s bedroom and she had heard Meredith screaming.
Knox had covered her ears with her hands.
Is she trying to blame Lumumba to protect herself and Sollecito - or even
someone else? Or was Lumumba there?
Investigators believe that all three suspects were involved in some way. Knox
allegedly left her bloody fingerprints on the wall. Bruises consistent with
a woman’s fingers were allegedly found on Meredith’s neck.
Among the key traces is a footprint, in blood that was found under a duvet
partly covering Meredith’s body, of a Nike shoe; investigators claim it is
comparable with shoes owned by Sollecito.
Sollecito has denied wearing his Nikes that day or being present. “That
evening I spent all my time at my home studying computers and the evening of
November 1, I was at the computer until I went to bed at about 3am,” he said
in the interview.
“Amanda slept with me and it was only the next morning that we discovered what
had happened at her house.”
For his part, Lumumba has insisted that he did not have sex with Meredith. “I
love my girlfriend,” he said, a reference to Alessandra Beata, a young
Polish woman by whom he has a 16-month-old son. Last week Beata said that
her boyfriend was innocent but would add no more. Lumumba claimed that on
the evening of the murder he worked at Le Chic bar, serving customers from
8pm onwards - and so far no traces of him have been identified in the room
where Meredith’s body was found.
But much forensic work is continuing. Police believe that Le Chic bar was
closed in the early evening. They seized the receipts from that night and
discovered the first one was not issued until 10.29pm. Lumumba’s lawyers
argue that receipts were issued only when customers left, not when they
ordered. But the police also point out that in the whole night the bar took
only €50 (£35).
AS bouquets left by students outside the cottage where Meredith died wilted in
the cold yesterday, detectives were still analysing 120 forensic traces
found inside. Detectives are also trying to trace the sender of the text
message received by a shop assistant called Mauro Palmieri in Rome, which he
claims warned of Meredith’s death.
They are also exploring the possibility that another man may have been
involved. One bloody finger-print found in the murder room does not come
from any of the three existing suspects. One witness has reported seeing a
woman resembling Knox and a man of north African appearance washing clothes
at a launderette after the murder.
Lumumba has told his lawyers to trace the 16 or so customers who, he insists,
will prove his innocence, including an unnamed Swiss professor he says he
chatted to.
From his cell, Sollecito said that as far as the events of November 1 were
concerned, “I have the impression of living through something that is
unreal”. Yesterday his father Francesco, after seeing his son at the prison,
said: “I believe my son is completely innocent.”
Knox’s mother visited her daughter for four hours yesterday but said nothing
when she emerged. Investigators, however, revealed that Knox’s mood has been
swinging dramatically. Sometimes she shouts, on another occasion she hugged
a police officer for comfort.
Late last week she asked for a guitar, a request that was refused. It was in
any case too late to impress Meredith with her singing.
Additional reporting: John Harlow in Seattle and Roger Waite
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