S3 Ep376: Meredith Kercher & Amanda Knox | Trial of the Century (Part 5)

In September 2007, 20-year-old American college student Amanda Knox moved to Perugia, Italy to study abroad and experience life on her own. She settled into a stone villa with three other young women and quickly began building friendships with her new roommates, forming a particularly close bond with 21-year-old British exchange student Meredith Kercher. Just weeks later, on November 2, Amanda would find herself standing outside that same home as police and paramedics rushed inside. Not fluent in Italian, she didn’t fully understand what was happening - only that Meredith had been found murdered in the villa they shared. Despite having no clue what was going on, Amanda became the focus of the murder investigation within hours. And what followed would become one of the most controversial criminal cases of the modern era, marked by intense scrutiny, global media coverage, and sharply divided opinions about guilt, innocence, and how justice is pursued when the world is watching. Try our coffee! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPodADS:1. https://www. RocketMoney.com/CrimeWeekly - Reach your financial goals, cancel unwanted subscriptions and more!2. https://www. MintMobile.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 50% off UNLIMITED premium wireless! Plans start at just $15 a month!3. https://www. EatIQBAR.com - Text WEEKLY to 64000 for 20% off all IQBAR products and FREE shipping!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:15Derrick Levasseur?

  And I'm Derrick Levasseur.

• 0:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, so today, we're jumping into the fifth and final part of the Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher series.

• 0:23Derrick Levasseur?

  We made it.

• 0:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  We made it, and hopefully, we'll have, I guess, some productive final thoughts at the end of this. But let's kind of jump in. Let me give you a quick review of where we're at now. Just two weeks after Meredith Kercher was found murdered inside her Prussia villa, forensic testing identified a partial bloody palm print on the pillow beneath her body. It belonged to a man detectives had not previously identified, somebody we knew as the Baron, and that was 20-year-old Rudy Gade. So as investigators looked into Rudy, they learned he had a criminal history, that he was known to carry a knife, and that he had previously used the same method of entry seen at the villa, throwing a rock through a window, even though the police said that they don't believe he threw a rock through the window, and they believe it was staged.

• 1:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  An international arrest warrant was issued, and Rudy was eventually taken into custody. But even as the evidence against Rudy grew, and grew quite quickly and in quite an accumulation, prosecutor Giuliano Magnini did not abandon his theory that Meredith's murder involved multiple attackers. He continued to argue that her roommate Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Rafael Celacito were also involved. In September of 2008, Rudy's attorneys requested a fast-track trial. Over the weeks that followed, hearings were held, and the prosecution used those proceedings to not only argue Rudy's guilt, but also to press for Amanda and Rafael to stand trial. On October 28th, Rudy was found guilty of sexually assaulting and murdering Meredith,

• 1:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Spoiler alert.

• 1:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Only.

• 1:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  He's, yeah, only 30 years in prison for sexually assaulting and murdering a woman, but he won't even serve anywhere close to that, spoiler alert. So, the judge also agreed with the prosecution's position that the murder involved multiple attackers, ruling that Amanda and Raphael would be tried next in what would become Italy's Trial of the Century. So, that's where we're at now. Amanda and Raphael's trial began in January of 2009, and it stretched until the end of the year with breaks built into the schedule. So, this trial went on for about a year. And the case was heard by two judges and a jury of six, all of whom would participate in the final verdict. The jury was not sequestered, okay?

• 2:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, this seems very different than a United States trial where you have like one judge, and then usually a jury of what, 12 people?

• 2:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Yup, 12 people, at least in the United States, yeah.

• 2:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, and then usually, in a, in a case like this, the jury would be sequestered. So, you can't talk to anybody, you can't be looking up the case in the papers or on the internet. This jury was not sequestered. They were allowed to know all about the case before the trial began, and they could continue to follow media coverage throughout the proceedings, which is apparently standard in Italy. I think that sometimes the whole sequestering of the jury thing goes a little too far, especially if it's a very, very well-known case and it's already been pretty blatant in the media. And then you'll like dismiss jurors if you found that they looked into it at all.

• 3:24Derrick Levasseur?

  You try to do it, you want to try to keep it as sterile as possible, but it is getting harder and harder with social media.

• 3:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, they have just this kind of very free-for-all where it's like, yeah, look it up, investigate it yourself, do whatever you want. I don't know how I feel about that. So, the trial was obviously a media circus, the whole case was a media circus. Every day, the courtroom was packed with more than 100 members of the press. I think the United States also does a better job at that where they're like, okay, only a certain amount of members from the press, and they kind of are very careful with who they pick, like making sure these people aren't, you know, kind of tabloid people and they're gonna do a good job covering the case. Amanda wrote in her book, waiting to be heard, quote, "I knew that almost every observer thought I was guilty and wanted me to suffer." End quote. By this point, coverage was almost entirely focused on Amanda with Raphael being

• 4:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  treated like an afterthought. You know, he's a guy who'd gone along with his evil, seductress girlfriend. He was someone who'd been pulled into something he never would have done on his own. The press leaned heavily into the foxy, noxy persona that they had created for Amanda, a sex-obsessed woman who could control the men around her. They watched everything she did and framed it in the worst possible light. When Amanda entered the courtroom on the first day of the trial and saw her family there, she smiled at them in that moment, was reported as her beaming as she was led into the courtroom, or as her making her entrance like a Hollywood diva, sashaying along the red carpet. Amanda said that when she later saw what was being written about her, she understood how people had come to

• 4:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  believe she was immoral, psychotic, and depraved. That was the only way the media was portraying her. And that's very accurate. Like, I know Amanda's probably sensitive about this. And I know that when you are put in the public eye, you tend to focus on the negatives more than the positives. But at this time, during the case lead-up and the investigation and then the trial, there was nobody out there in the media, in Italy, defending Amanda or trying to be unbiased or trying to look at a different sort of angle.

• 5:31Derrick Levasseur?

  We gotta call it what it is, right? You have this foreigner who's there and automatically they're thinking, yep, the American killed her. Especially with what was being fed to the media.

• 5:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, and I think it was very salacious. Like, people were enjoying it. You know, they wanted to see her that way because otherwise, why would they want to see her as, you know, some poor, young woman caught in the crosshairs of something she had nothing to do with? That's not as fun. You know, and at this point, I feel like this whole, this whole thing, this, this media circus, had become fun for people. They were looking at it almost as like a soap opera in real time.

• 6:02Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep, absolutely. I mean, OJ was kind of a similar thing. When you talk about trials of the century, OJ took on a life of its own as well.

• 6:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Karen Reed? Do I have to say more?

• 6:10Derrick Levasseur?

  That's a more recent one, yeah.

• 6:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  So but at least like in those cases, um, I don't know about OJ as much, but Karen Reed, you kind of had people split, you know, some people were like, look at Karen smiling and dressing up in the courtroom. And then other people were like, well, yeah, she's innocent and she's sick of being treated this way. So of course she's gonna, you know, show you that she's strong and she's ready to fight. So you don't have every single person looking at Karen Reed like, oh, you sex pot, seductress, like killer murderer. You had two sides. Here, there was no, there was no two sides. And I do feel bad about that, especially when you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. So the prosecution followed

• 6:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  the same path, of course. Magnini and his assistant spent months, I mean, months attacking Amanda's character through argument and witness testimony from Meredith's friends, Amanda's roommates, other people. I, I've never seen a prosecution have so much time and leeway to just spend, spend all this energy, breaking the character of somebody and trying to make them seem as bad and immoral as possible. They wanted to build a narrative that Amanda had been the problem in that house long before Meredith was killed. They said Amanda and Meredith were not really friends and claimed they weren't getting along in the time leading

• 7:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  up to the murder. And they pointed to Halloween, arguing that the reason the two women did not spend the night together was because their relationship was not what Amanda claimed it was. And that could be a hundred percent true. There could have been issues. I've only had roommates, um, once when I was in college. It wasn't a great experience for, for me or for any of us. Uh, I think when you get several girls living together, and you're coming from all different backgrounds and different, you know, upbringings and you get used to the way your family lives. And then you can all try to combine your lifestyles together. There's going to be friction. There's going to be butting heads. There's going to be some of your roommates that you vibe and gel with more than others.

• 8:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I think that there probably was tension between Meredith and Amanda. Meredith's boyfriend kind of said like, I knew that, you know, Amanda wasn't Meredith's favorite person, but you know, I didn't think that it could, could have been ending with Meredith being dead. Exactly. Meredith and Amanda could have not been the best of friends, but it did seem when Amanda was texting Meredith on Halloween, she was trying to maybe

• 8:42Derrick Levasseur?

  Nala Branch.

• 8:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bridge the gap. Yeah. Like, hey, you gonna, you have a costume? Do you want to do something tonight? And Meredith was like, no, you know, I have other plans.

• 8:51Derrick Levasseur?

  What do you think about the 250 or the 215 that was found on Amanda? What do you think? I don't think it's super relevant to whether or not Amanda's involved, but I think it kind of goes in line with what you're saying right now, where there's a world where Amanda had absolutely nothing to do with Meredith's murder. And yet maybe their relationship wasn't just this happy-go-lucky thing that you may expect from roommates, right? It could be more like you just said, where a lot of roommates, when you don't know them, going into it, you just kind of get put together, whether it's at college or, you know, you're overseas and you kind of just all want to use each other essentially for the financial aspect of it. You may not get along with some of your roommates. That's perfectly normal.

• 9:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think that's more common.

• 9:33Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I would agree. You find out who someone is when you move in with them?

• 9:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Remember the Meghan Trussell case? It's like Meghan and her roommate really did not like each other at all, to the point where Meghan goes missing and her roommate's like, I don't want to find her. Not that she knew she was missing and in danger, but it's like, yeah, if she wants to go away for a few days, I'm happy about it. I'm good. And that could have been why Amanda was spending more time at Raphael's and maybe Meredith was...

• 9:56Derrick Levasseur?

  That is also something that I thought about as well. Like, that was my college experience where the roommate will start spending more time in someone else's room because things aren't going well between you two.

• 10:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Someone else's room, somebody else's dorm. Yeah, exactly.

• 10:10Derrick Levasseur?

  I want to tell you about the story with me and my best friend. We went to college together.

• 10:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think you have a little bit.

• 10:15Derrick Levasseur?

  I was playing baseball.

• 10:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  Weren't you guys, did you go to, you were in high school together?

• 10:18Derrick Levasseur?

  We were best friends in high school. Went to college together. He played soccer, I played baseball, both on scholarships. So we had, we had responsibilities. We had to... be on the field in order to get our get our scholarships. I got bronchitis because he was someone who slept very hot. So it's like the middle of the winter in Connecticut and he's got a fan in the window on like 30 degrees out.

• 10:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  The open window?

• 10:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Open window with the fan in the window. And so I asked him after I was diagnosed with bronchitis and couldn't play. Hey,

• 10:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  You can get bronchitis from that?

• 10:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, it was like breathing it like I no word of a lie, not for story purposes. There was smoke like the the color of the you know, you get when you it's cold outside.

• 10:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like fog, yeah.

• 10:57Derrick Levasseur?

  As I was sleeping in bed. So I was like, hey, hey, so and so, you got to keep the window closed. I'm sick like I'm borderline getting pneumonia. And I haven't been able to play in a week now because of it. And we're in, you know, it's we're in fall ball, we're warming up or we're practicing outside. And we're also running the beach in the morning and I can't even run. So he's like, yeah, no problem. The next day he did it again. So I calmly got out of bed. We're on the third floor calmly got out of bed and kicked this fan three stories down onto the ground out the window. That was the end of our relationship. He he ended up staying in someone else's room. But it does happen because this is my best friend at home. We did not live together. And as soon as we did, things were things went out the window, literally and

• 11:41Derrick Levasseur?

  figuratively. I will say we're on good terms now, though.

• 11:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, you're not compatible to live together. It could have anything to do with the way someone sleeps like some somebody likes to sleep with the TV blasting.

• 11:51Derrick Levasseur?

  I did replace his fan too, for anybody's asking.

• 11:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Really? I wouldn't have.

• 11:54Derrick Levasseur?

  I bought him a new fan.

• 11:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  I wouldn't make what?

• 11:56Derrick Levasseur?

  The fan was was not in good condition.

• 11:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  The fam the fan was a family heirloom like.

• 12:01Derrick Levasseur?

  No, it was like a $10 fan from Target.

• 12:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  You were dying and he kept putting it on like you were absolutely right.

• 12:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, yep.

• 12:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  But yeah, the cleanliness like anything, you know, it's just it's tough. It is tough to live together. And that's why I always say like, if you're getting married, if you're going to be in a long term relationship, get engaged, you you need to live together before you make sure this is the person I'm with forever because that's that could that could make or break it.

• 12:28Derrick Levasseur?

  It is something you got to consider. I'm not just completely dismissing it. People who think that Amanda may have done something. Yeah, it could be the start of a motive. But Thinking that Amanda sexually assaulted and murdered Meredith over their disagreements as far as living arrangements.

• 12:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or had her, had her ganged up on, gang raped because she's like, ah, Meredith isn't nice to me. Like you guys got, you know, I, I can't, and as far as the money, do I think Amanda was stealing Meredith's money? I don't, I mean, I have to know about her financial situation. I don't know. Like was she strapped for cash at the time?

• 13:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Here's what I will say about it. Let's just play, let me play devil's advocate, right? That's what I do. Rudy, who we know is charged and convicted for Meredith's murder, is saying that he was there. Now, he's bullshitting about everything else as far as what went down. But as I've always said, there's some little bit of truth nuggets in there, right? And maybe there was a brief conversation before everything went down where she had complained about potentially, or at least believing Amanda stole her money. I only say that because how would Rudy know that Amanda was going to be found with $215?

• 13:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  Cause he hung out with Meredith's boyfriend in the basement flat. So if Meredith told her boyfriend, I think Amanda's stealing my money, then maybe Meredith's boyfriend brought it up to him.

• 13:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay. But either way, Meredith at one point said it to someone that she had concerns about it. And then coincidentally, Amanda was found with a close amount of money on her. Now that money could have been from a variety of different sources. It may have had nothing to do with Meredith. But it's important to bring everything up and to just kind of check all of our boxes. I, I think there could be something there, whether it's true that Amanda was actually stealing from her. That's a different story, but it's not out of the realm of possibilities that Meredith at least thought someone was stealing from her.

• 14:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  We don't know if Meredith thought someone was stealing from her. We know that Meredith took money out a few days before she was murdered and she took that money out for rent.

• 14:31Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 14:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  And the rent, that rent money never made it to the landlord. We know that Meredith took out 250. Amanda was found with 215.

• 14:39Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes.

• 14:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Rudy could have just stolen, stolen, Rudy could have just stolen the money. And, and then the police are like, well, Amanda has money on her, over $200. Like that, they could be completely different money.

• 14:53Derrick Levasseur?

  Completely agree.

• 14:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Rudy could have just stolen Meredith's money, which I kind of find to be more plausible, considering his fingerprint and his DNA was found in her purse. And now the detectives are using that to be like, oh, well, Amanda was stealing Meredith's rent money. We don't know if Meredith told anybody that Amanda, that she thought Amanda was stealing her rent money. Because as far as we know, has, has she ever had trouble paying the rent before? You know what I mean? So it could just be the police, once again, being creative with their narrative. Meredith and Amanda, maybe not the best of friends. I don't think that Amanda's everybody's cup of tea, to be honest.

• 15:27Derrick Levasseur?

  Wouldn't be a shock to me at all.

• 15:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think even Amanda herself would admit like, yeah, I'm not the kind of person that can just be friends with everybody. Like you gotta, you're gonna love me or you're gonna hate me. Like the media, though, the prosecution also portrayed Amanda as sex crazed. They claimed Meredith was uncomfortable with the number of men Amanda brought into the house and argued that Amanda's sexuality created tension between them. So the prosecution repeated their sex game gone wrong theory to the jury. They said Amanda used Raphael's kitchen knife to kill Meredith and claimed that afterward, Amanda covered Meredith with the duvet because she did not want to look at her body. Giuliano McNee argued that only a woman would cover a body and said that detail proved Amanda was involved. According to the prosecution, after the murder, Amanda, Raphael and Rudy all fled the house,

• 16:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  something they said was supported by what the neighbor, Nara, had reported hearing. Remember, Nara testified she heard a scream between 11 and 11:30 PM, followed by three people running on gravel, coming from the direction of the villa's driveway. Once again, I don't know what the sound of three people running sounds like. Does it sound that different from two people running? Did you hear three voices? What's going on? And, and when I say what's going on, I think we need to be a little bit more specific here because this neighbor, Nara, was treated as a star witness for the prosecution and her testimony was used to approximate Meredith's time of death. This, it just pisses me off. This is, there's nothing scientific or forensic about this.

• 16:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's just, um, what is it called when you make the theory fit the evidence instead of use the evidence to build a theory?

• 17:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Confirmation bias?

• 17:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  This is confirmation bias. Thank you detective.

• 17:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, gotcha, gotcha.

• 17:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, that's not my favorite thing that's happening amongst other things in this trial. And I think it's one of those situations where it's like, could Amanda have potentially been involved in some way, shape or form? We'll never really know because the investigation in the trial was just so poorly done and so biased. And so you're going to miss a ton of evidence that didn't fit what you thought already happened. And you're going to interpret a lot of the other evidence to make it fit what already happened. And you really didn't ever pursue any other theories.

• 17:42Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 17:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I think you would agree that an investigation like that is dead in the water at that point.

• 17:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Couldn't agree more. Yeah, there it's, it's not that complex. When you go into any investigation, whether it's a seasoned detective or someone off the street, you let the breadcrumbs, AKA the evidence, lead you on a journey, right? Let, let them tell you the story. In this case and in many others, what they do is they say, okay, I already know what the destination is. So I'm only going to look for breadcrumbs that get me there. Anything that doesn't or contradicts my theory, I'm just going to discredit it in one way or another to keep on the narrative that I believe in. And obviously that's the wrong way to do it.

• 18:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Obviously it's going to be a problem to use Nara's testimony to approximate Meredith's time of death because Nara was not really a reliable witness. No eyewitness or ear witness, you know, witnesses in this point, they're not going to be enough. You kind of have to use it as like supporting evidence, if that, not um, actual evidence to say Meredith was killed at this time. So for example, when Nara was asked whether she might've heard the scream on a different night, she said, quote, "I don't remember these things, these hours, these things. I don't remember them anymore," end quote. Of course you don't. Nobody would expect you to, except for Giuliano McNee, apparently.

• 19:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  And even so, the prosecutor relied on her testimony as their time of death. So from there, prosecutors argued that Amanda and Raphael later returned to the villa, and they staged the break-in to frame Rudy. So Rudy, Amanda, Raphael leave. Amanda and Raphael come back without Rudy, and they're like, we're gonna, we're gonna set him up, even though it didn't happen because nobody found out about him forever. They were in prison before he was. So they claimed that the couple cleaned up the scene, but only removed evidence that pointed to themselves, leaving Rudy's behind. How can you clean up your own fingerprints and not, you know, like?

• 19:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 19:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  What do you, what do you have?

• 19:42Derrick Levasseur?

  We talked about it last time.

• 19:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  You got luminol here with, you got DNA testing kits?

• 19:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, whatever you find, certain evidence that supports it, but evidence that doesn't, it goes exactly to what I was just saying about the breadcrumbs. They're gonna find a way to manipulate the story to fit their narrative, not let the evidence itself tell the narrative to you. So it's an issue.

• 20:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  Here's the thing, though, when you're, when you're a prosecutor, like Giuliano McNee, right, and you have the weight of, of the law and order system behind you, and you're talking to jury members who are just, you know, part of the general public, and this is, you know, in the, this is years ago. It's not, true crime isn't a super popular subject at this point. People aren't as educated about how it works. So you're talking to these laypeople, and they're like, yeah, totally, I can totally agree, they wiped away Rudy's fingerprints, or they wiped away their fingerprints and left Rudy's. Of course they did, they got rid of their hairs, and they left Rudy, you know, stuff like that. The, the jury's going to hear that, and because it's being said by a reliable person who's

• 20:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  in the, the field of criminal investigation, they're just going to believe it, based on him saying it. And this is why it's so important for somebody in Giuliano McNee's position to, to act above reproach. And he, in my opinion, he never did. So I want to take a quick break, but we're gonna be right back.

• 21:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, we're back. So the prosecution also spent a significant amount of time attacking Amanda and Rafael's alibis, arguing that their accounts did not match the evidence or witness testimony. They said the defendants claimed they were home all night, but no one could prove it. Instead, they pointed to a witness named Antonio, who had seen Amanda and Rafael in the town center, Piazza Grimana, we talked about him, during the time they claimed to be at Rafael's apartment. Like I said, part four, we talked about Antonio. He was a homeless man. He was staying in this town center, and the prosecution relied so heavily on this account that the press actually referred to Antonio as McNee's super witness. So Antonio testified that he saw Amanda and Rafael in the town center from around 9:30 PM until shortly before midnight

• 21:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  on November 1st. The prosecution presented his testimony as a slam dunk, proof that the couple had been lying about being at Rafael's apartment all night. Amanda later wrote that she could not understand why the prosecution leaned on Antonio at all. If Meredith was murdered between 11:00 and 11:30 PM, as the prosecution claimed from Nara's testimony, then Antonio's account actually placed her and Rafael elsewhere at that time. He was actually giving them an alibi. It didn't make sense to her, and she hoped the jury would recognize the inconsistencies. The prosecution also called another "star witness", someone who claimed to have seen Amanda and Rafael with Rudy before Meredith's murder. When asked how he could be sure it was Amanda he had seen, the witness said he remembered

• 22:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  the gap between her front teeth. Amanda was then asked to smile for the court to show the gap. But here's the thing, Amanda did not have a gap in her teeth. And once that became clear, the witness muttered, "Oh, she doesn't have it anymore." End quote. What a mess.

• 22:51Derrick Levasseur?

  Wow, yeah.

• 22:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  What a mess.

• 22:53Derrick Levasseur?

  Not good. And from what we know, she didn't have like any dental work during that time, so...

• 22:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  She's been in prison.

• 22:58Derrick Levasseur?

  Right, right. So she didn't have the orthodontist come visit her at prison and fix her gap.

• 23:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, she had Invisalign the whole time.

• 23:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, no, no.

• 23:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, oh, she doesn't have it anymore. What is this witchcraft?

• 23:11Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, this person's done.

• 23:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  So prosecutors also focused heavily on Amanda and Raphael's behavior after Meredith was found, arguing that it proved their involvement. They pointed to the couple kissing outside the house and later at the police station, refusing to go anywhere without each other. Amanda saying strange things to Meredith's friends and Amanda doing yoga at the police station, which we've already said, that's weird, but she's a weird kid. Okay.

• 23:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I will say some people in the comments were saying it wasn't yoga. That was the cops version. It was more stretching. We weren't there.

• 23:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Stretching, yeah.

• 23:45Derrick Levasseur?

  But here's what we'll say, without being there, if she was doing any type of actual exercise in the lobby of the police station or wherever she was, our personal opinion, little weird. Does it mean it's not true? Does it mean she was doing anything nefarious that implicated her in this crime? But just in general, a little weird. I think we have the right to have that opinion.

• 24:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, if she was doing stretches because she'd been sitting awhile, that's cool. If you're doing splits in the police station.

• 24:13Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, not great.

• 24:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  That's a little weird. You didn't, you don't have to do that. They also emphasized Amanda's statements to police focusing on her claim that she'd been at the villa when Meredith was killed and argued that she accused Patrick because she was covering for Rudy. Also, we did find that very strange that Amanda was like, I was there and so was Patrick. But once again, we're entitled to our opinion, but this is why you have to be so careful. Because all of this stuff's going to be used against you. If these people want to get you, then they're going to be using the way you're behaving, what you're saying, and they're going to pick apart everything and they're going to try to make everything look bad. So you sort of have to, you know, for anybody else, if you're ever in this position, don't think

• 24:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  that everyone in the law enforcement end is on your side and just wants to get to the truth. You might want to just try to behave in a way where you're like, I'm not going to give them anything against me.

• 25:07Derrick Levasseur?

  Everyone's different, but and people aren't wrong. We weren't there. We don't know the extent of it, but we're going off what has been reported and.

• 25:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Doesn't look great.

• 25:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, so Rudy Gidey, right? He's already been charged with Meredith's murder and her sexual assault. He's called to testify, but he immediately exercised his right to not speak. And then he left the stand because he's got nothing to say, right? Now, he's got nothing to say as far as it comes to a trial with Amanda and Raphael. In my opinion, what is he gonna say unless he's gonna lie? And I think he doesn't want to lie in a court of law. He doesn't want to lie on stand, on the stand. But he, he has nothing else to say if he's not gonna kind of make stuff up, which he already kind of did, in my opinion. So Amanda was then also called to testify. Now, in Italy, defendants can choose whether to testify, and Amanda agreed, while Raphael did not. Amanda later explained that she had more to prove than Raphael,

• 26:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  and it made sense that he chose to not take the stand. By this point, Amanda was fluent in Italian, because she's been in prison in Italy for months and months and months. And she's spending so much time studying in prison. She decided to testify in Italian because she was concerned a translator would not properly convey what she wanted to say. In my opinion, Amanda has learned a lot during her time in prison.

• 26:26Derrick Levasseur?

  A lot of free time.

• 26:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, outside of Italian. She's learned, I need to speak for myself. I can't depend on a translator. I don't trust anybody at this point. It's me for myself, and I need to speak for myself. She's learned that she can't be this innocent little babe in the woods. She has to stand up for herself. Um, so that's very good, because at this point, I think it was a super, a super smart idea to testify in Italian and make sure, uh, everything that I am saying is getting across to the people that are hearing it in the way that I want it to. This is my story, these are my words. So obviously, she told the jury she was innocent and that she had nothing to do with Meredith's murder. Much of her testimony focused on explaining why she had falsely implicated Patrick.

• 27:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  She described being hit by the police officers and being intimidated during her interrogation. Uh, she reiterated that her statements were false and said that if she had not been under such intense stress, she never would have made them. After Amanda finished testifying, the court broke for the summer. So they paused the trial for two months. This would drive me absolutely crazy. And during that break, the defense finally received the prosecution's DNA evidence. This is a good thing, right? Because they were supposed to have been given this material before the trial began. But despite court orders, the prosecution had not turned it over. And we're going to find out why. Because when the defense did finally receive the data, they immediately discovered serious problems.

• 27:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  They already knew there were issues with the bra clasp, having watched how it was collected and handled. From the beginning, it was clear that it had been contaminated, or at least it could have been, based on how it was being, you know, touched with gloves that were touching other things. But the new DNA data revealed additional problems with other evidence. As for the kitchen knife, the lab had not followed internationally accepted standards when testing the extremely small amount of DNA present on the handle and blade. The sample on the blade, which they had claimed to belong to Meredith, was so limited that the lab technician was only able to run the test one time. Now, protocol requires a second test to attempt confirmation, but the lab worker couldn't do that. The DNA sample is way too small.

• 28:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  So instead of reporting the result as inconclusive, which she should have, the, the lab worker stated that Meredith's DNA had been found on the blade. It kind of looks like, it looks like there's a conspiracy here, right? Because what does this lab worker care one way or the other? Unless she's got someone in her ear, like, you know, it, it came back as Meredith's once. You don't have, it ran it again, you can't run it again, it's too small. But it came back as Meredith's once, don't you want to give that girl her justice?

• 29:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  You know, someone's in her ear, like, kind of telling her to do something she knows she shouldn't be doing.

• 29:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Even if it wasn't in her ear, she's got a television, right? And so was she influenced by someone? Was she influenced by her biases from what she was being, seeing in the media? There's a million ways it could have happened.

• 29:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yep, or both, right?

• 29:20Derrick Levasseur?

  Or both, yeah.

• 29:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, so the defense also learned that Rafael's kitchen knife did not match the wounds on Meredith's neck. So this, this knife had nothing to do with the murder. The blade was too wide to have caused Meredith's two smaller wounds. There was another issue. The blade was approximately six and a half inches long, while the deepest wound on Meredith's body, which some believe may have been And three stab wounds in one and measured just over three inches deep. So it seemed highly unlikely that in the chaos of an attack, a killer would plunge the knife in only halfway, three separate times, all to the exact same depth measurable to a thousandth of an inch. When they say it seems highly unlikely, it's, it's pretty much impossible.

• 30:01Derrick Levasseur?

  Good luck. I couldn't do that if you tried.

• 30:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  That's pretty much impossible. So because of these issues, when the trial resumed in mid-September, Amanda and Raphael's attorneys asked the court to basically end the trial. They were like, hey, you know, all the evidence that you even you cited to even have these people still in prison and to bring these people to trial, it's all crumbling in front of us. You know, they argued that their clients' rights had been violated and that they should have had access to the DNA evidence from the start. They also said the knife evidence.

• 30:29Derrick Levasseur?

  Agreed, by the way.

• 30:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 30:30Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, of course.

• 30:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  That they should have had that the lawyers, the defense lawyers should have had access to that DNA evidence from the start.

• 30:38Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, the discovery, they should know what they're up against. They should have an opportunity to build a defense against it.

• 30:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  I can't believe they went, they started the trial and went through the trial for months.

• 30:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Without having that back.

• 30:50Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, think about it. That's how many cases have we seen that in where the prosecution will have a DNA expert based on the DNA found? And the defense attorneys will have their own DNA experts who contradict whatever the prosecutor's DNA expert said. So to not have that opportunity to see what they have and to allow them to have other experts look at that information, that's not fair.

• 31:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  And usually here, if that happens, the defense will be like, hey, we have to, you know, like, what is it called? Suspend the trial or?

• 31:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, delay it, suspend it. Yeah.

• 31:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  Uh, until we have the, the stuff back, until we have the information back. Cause without it, how do you expect us to go into trial unprepared? And that's why you'll see these trials take sometimes years to start. But with this, it kind of felt like it was the other way around, like get Amanda and Raphael on trial ASAP. And then hopefully the stuff will trickle in later and their defense attorneys can get it. Hopefully when it's too late for them to do anything about it. But luckily for Amanda and Raphael, they took a two, a two month break for the summer. And that's when the results came back in. The defense teams, they also said the knife evidence completely undermined the prosecution's case. But do you know what? Faced with all of this very logical information, faced with all these facts, the judge still denied their request.

• 32:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  To end the trial, which is crazy. Yeah.

• 32:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Odd, but this goes back to the narrative surrounding it, who's being influenced, who's on trial. All of that plays a factor.

• 32:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, is this also the same judge that tried Rudy? And was like, yeah, I see everything that's in front of me and I'm going to find you guilty of this murder and sexual assault. And I also agree Meredith and Raphael were probably there, so they're going to go on trial too. And you're only going to get 30 years, you know? Is this the same judge or what's going on? So when the defense was able to present their case, they worked through the prosecution's theory piece by piece. They deconstructed it. They argued that Amanda was not an Italian woman and was not going to behave the way police expected her to. They pointed out that many of the prosecution's witnesses only came forward after Amanda was arrested and that their statements were filled with contradictions and inaccuracies that made them unreliable. They also challenged the prosecution's timeline.

• 32:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Prosecutors had relied heavily on the neighbor, Nara's testimony, to establish the time of death. The defense argued that a more reliable indicator was the contents of Meredith's stomach, which is absolutely a more reliable indicator. And those contents of her stomach suggested she had likely died between 9:00 and 9:30 PM and no later than 10:00 PM. So if that timeline was correct, there was no way Amanda and Raphael could be involved. Raphael's laptop showed it had last been used at 9:15 PM, which would support their alibi if that scientific and forensic way of determining Meredith's time of death was accurate. Which is more accurate than Nara hearing a scream between 11:00 and 11:30, but she can't remember times and dates, why are you asking her?

• 33:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  So the defense addressed the prosecution's sex game theory directly. They pointed out the flaws in both the narrative and the DNA evidence. They said it was impossible that Amanda and Raphael could have cleaned up only their own DNA while leaving Rudy's behind. That scenario simply did not make sense. They also explained that it would not be unusual to find mixed DNA from Amanda and Meredith in the bathroom. They lived in the same house and they shared that bathroom. Their DNA would be naturally present and capable of mixing at any time, especially given the level of cross-contamination that had occurred during evidence processing.

• 34:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  So after the defense presented their side, the court took another break, this time for six weeks, and this allowed both sides to prepare their final arguments. When proceedings resumed, Giuliano Magnini presented what would become his most extreme version of events. Did you think it could get more extreme? I didn't, but it did. So he continued pushing the sex game theory, but now claimed two knives were used. Raphael's kitchen knife, yeah.

• 34:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Curveball.

• 34:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Raphael's kitchen knife still being used, right? Because he's already said that, so he can't look like he was wrong about anything. So Raphael's kitchen knife still in play. Then another knife that Raphael always carried with him. So the prosecution introduced a 3D computer-generated animation using avatars to represent Amanda, Raphael, Rudy, and Meredith, and they reenacted what they claimed had happened. Once again, Amanda was portrayed as a sexually dominant figure who was able to control both men. At one point, the prosecution even referred to Rudy as, quote, "Poor Rudy," end quote. This is the man who's already been found guilty of murdering and raping Meredith Kercher. And

• 35:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  the prosecution is so hell-bent on getting Amanda and Raphael, that they're actually calling him "Poor Rudy." I can't even believe it. I'm disgusted. So the defense reiterated what they'd been saying all along. Nothing added up. Rudy was the killer. Rudy alone was the killer. Amanda and Raphael addressed the court themselves. Once again, they stated they were innocent. What much else could they say? After that, the judges and jury began deliberations. So, on December 4th, after nearly a year of trial, the verdict was delivered. Amanda and Raphael were found guilty on all charges. Guilty, Derek.

• 36:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, we were going back and forth here.

• 36:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 36:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  All through the series, but guilty based on that trial, based on that evidence?

• 36:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, we're gonna get more into it in the end, and I'm saving a lot for it, but I think most people, regardless of where you fall, would agree that based on the evidence and the problems with this investigation, that...

• 36:23Derrick Levasseur?

  These two parties at least are legally innocent with the with the evidence that was presented.

• 36:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, there wouldn't be enough to, yeah.

• 36:31Derrick Levasseur?

  There's no reason that they should have been found guilty. There is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. There is more than enough reasonable doubt in this trial alone, based on the investigation, how it was conducted and what was overlooked. And also, just the narrative as far as what happened here, their theory on how this all went down. None of it, none of it gets to the point for me where I would say, yeah, definitely guilty, either party. And the fact that a jury came to that conclusion, there's no way that the outside pressures and and and everything that these people were probably hearing were influenced in their decision-making process. It's just, it's human nature.

• 37:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, even so, the second I'd find out, like, oh, you know, the DNA testing wasn't really being done. I guess, yeah, well, once again, true crime, DNA, forensics, all that stuff just wasn't as much mainstream back then as it is now. And and maybe not even, I don't know how Italy is with that kind of stuff. Like, are they true crime fans in Italy? Let us know if you're from Italy in here. But I bet you, we don't have as many people from Italy interested in true crime as we do, you know, Americans. It seems that's a very kind of American thing. And so maybe they just weren't as, I guess, up to date on how forensics are. Once again, when you have an authority figure in the law and order

• 37:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  sort of complex, being like, this is what happened, and this is what the DNA says, what do you do? You don't know. You don't know better. You don't, you're not, you haven't been trained. You haven't gone through any education of any kind. You're just like, taking in the evidence through the lens that you have, which isn't, you know, backed up by a ton of training or or education. So.

• 38:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  This is definitely reputation based, I think. I think that every single person, like Amanda said, hated her by the time she walked in that courtroom and nothing she would have said and nothing that would have been presented would have changed the outcome. So basically, a year of everyone's time was wasted because that verdict was going to be the same, no matter what.

• 38:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I think, I think just like the detectives, the jury probably had decided which way they were going to go before the trial even started. When you have a witness get up there and say, "Oh, yeah, I know because of her gap teeth." I mean, this is just one of the many things.

• 38:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  She, she doesn't have it anymore.

• 38:54Derrick Levasseur?

  She doesn't have it. She's, maybe I don't have the right person. Disregard, we're still going forward.

• 38:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Never mind, I didn't see a gap.

• 39:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  So Amanda was actually sentenced to 26 years in prison. Raphael was sentenced to 25 years. They were also ordered to pay Meredith's family more than $7 million and Amanda was ordered to pay Patrick approximately $60,000 for defamation. Now, across Italy, many people celebrated the convictions. They already believed Amanda and Raphael were guilty and the verdict simply confirmed what they thought they already knew. But obviously Amanda and Raphael were stunned. They genuinely believed that they would be found not guilty, given the lack of evidence tying them to the crime. Meredith's family told the media they were thankful the court had reached a guilty verdict, but they also said Meredith's death had left a permanent void in their lives, obviously.

• 39:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  They wanted to focus on remembering her for who she was. Her brother John said, quote, "Everyone in this room associates Meredith with a tragic event, but we would prefer not to remember her that way. We would like to concentrate on the 21 years that we had with her," end quote. Amanda and Raphael were sent back to prison to serve their sentences. And in her book, Amanda wrote about how overwhelming it was to return there, knowing that, you know, if the Italian public and police have it their way, she's going to be incarcerated for years. But while there, the bad news kept coming. So I'm going to tell you what happened, which, you know, it pisses me off.

• 40:20Derrick Levasseur?

  As if we don't have enough bad information already, but yeah.

• 40:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, if you're Amanda at this point, it's like, no more bad news because I'm going to go, I'm going to be pushed over the edge. And this bad news, what she's going to find out and what the world is going to find out is just absolutely, I think, to me, a miscarriage of justice in every way, shape or form. And I would like somebody to answer for it. But we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

• 40:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right, so about three weeks after the convictions, Amanda learned that the appeals court had reduced Rudy Gede's sentence from 30 years to 16 years after the prosecution asked for a lesser sentence. Their new position, the prosecution, Giuliano McNee, the new position was that Rudy was not the person who plunged the knife into Meredith's neck. They now said that Amanda was responsible. Therefore Rudy shouldn't be in prison for as long as Amanda was. And, you know, Amanda couldn't believe it. I can't believe it. Can you believe it?

• 41:23Derrick Levasseur?

  No.

• 41:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  30 years was still not enough. And now you're reducing it to 16 years. And once again, spoiler alert, he won't be in prison for 16 years.

• 41:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, just weeks after that, Amanda was charged with slander for saying that police officers had hit her during their interrogation. And she was later convicted on that charge.

• 41:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Wow, they really had it out for her, huh?

• 41:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think, I think it was at this point, they were wrong. They figured out they were wrong.

• 41:49Derrick Levasseur?

  They're doubling down on it.

• 41:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  And they were like, wow, we were really wrong. And nobody can ever find out how wrong we were. Because we're going to look terrible and...

• 41:56Derrick Levasseur?

  It's definitely looking that way. That's for damn sure.

• 41:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  So about a month after Amanda was charged with slander, Giuliano McNee himself was convicted of abuse of power in an unrelated case. Despite that conviction, Amanda and Raphael's guilty verdicts remained in place. And McNee's conviction was later overturned. So everything's ending up the way that it should. If, if this is the system in which these, these police officers are working in. And I, I can't, I, it's not like I expected, oh, Giuliano McNee is going to be charged with abuse of power in an unrelated case. And suddenly everyone's going to be like, oh, maybe he's a bad guy. And let's relook at Amanda and Raphael's case. No, this is confirmation bias taken to a level of delusion.

• 42:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 42:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  So for a long time Amanda said she was deeply depressed. Of course, of course she would be. She described periods where she felt hopeless and admitted that she sometimes thought about taking her own life. As the months passed Amanda began to pull herself out of that place. She wrote that she did not want the authorities to win in that way. If she remained miserable and broken in prison, well, then they kind of get their way, right? They put her where they wanted her and now she's just gonna shut up and sort of fall into a dark hole of despair and not fight for herself and it's only gonna make her bitter and she refused to let that happen. So instead she tried to stay occupied and she helped other inmates wherever and whenever she could. Because she now spoke both Italian and English,

• 43:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  she was often able to assist women who were struggling to communicate with guards, attorneys or family members. And at the same time she worked on her appeal, a process that operates differently in Italy than it does in the United States. And I think I'm starting to find out that a lot of things operate different in Italy than they do in the United States. Not that the United States is a perfect system by any means, please don't ever confuse that I would say that.

• 43:52Derrick Levasseur?

  That's not, we're not the, we're definitely not the model, that's for sure.

• 43:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, no, no.

• 43:56Derrick Levasseur?

  I haven't found a perfect system yet. If you do, please let us know.

• 43:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, there is no perfect system, but Italy's definitely not doing it right here. So Italy has three levels of justice. They have the lower court where Amanda and Raphael were convicted, then they have the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. So after a conviction in the lower court, the case moves to the Court of Appeals, which decides whether the case should be reviewed again. If the Court of Appeals declines to reopen the case, it then moves to the Supreme Court, which determines whether the conviction and the sentence will stand. And they are the end-all, be-all. If it goes to the Supreme Court and Supreme Court's like, "Yeah, you know, you're still guilty, you're shit out of luck." There's nothing... Nothing you can do. Um, now if the Court of Appeals agrees that the case deserves another look, the court reopens the proceedings, they review new evidence, and they hear additional

• 44:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  testimony. This process carries risk, however, because if the Court of Appeals upholds the conviction, it can also impose a harsher sentence, which is definitely not how it works in the United States.

• 44:56Derrick Levasseur?

  No, no, no, that's a, it probably deters people from

• 45:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly.

• 45:01Derrick Levasseur?

  Because now you're thinking, wow, it's pretty bad right now, but if I go for it, if they're not in there for life, I only have so many years left, I go forward, I couldn't double that. It avoids people from actually going for that appeal, which they're entitled to do.

• 45:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  It doesn't make any sense why that would be a thing unless it was there as a deterrent to just stop people from trying to argue and fight. Because why? If you're, you know, just rehear it again, you know, what's the, what's the harm there? So Amanda and Raphael's first step was the Court of Appeals. So in their appeal request, their attorneys detailed the problems with the prosecution's timeline, witness testimony, and DNA evidence. And they asked the court to appoint independent experts to review the DNA evidence from the knife and the bra clasp. The prosecution responded by arguing that Amanda and Raphael had already received lenient sentences, and that the Court of Appeals should instead increase their punishment to life in prison. Wow. What a bunch of dicks. So after reviewing arguments

• 46:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  from both sides, the Court of Appeals agreed to reopen the case and appointed independent experts to reexamine the key DNA evidence. Now, their findings would not be available until after the retrial had begun, which, once again, appears to be standard in Italy. Usually, in the United States, you don't go forward with the trial until all the evidence and all the forensic analysis and everything is back, and everyone's had a chance to look at it and kind of determine what it means and how it fits into their specific way that they're going to argue the case. But It looks like the trials are just starting in Italy and when stuff comes in, stuff's coming in. So the Court of Appeals retrial began in late 2010 and in many ways, it resembled the first trial. There were judges and a jury who would once again determine Amanda

• 46:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  and Raphael's fate, but there were important differences. Amanda was no longer naive about the process or what she was facing. And by this point, the media climate had shifted. And I don't think we really understand how important, especially in these early cases, how important the media played, like how important a role the media played. We can see it, Casey Anthony, OJ Simpson, all of these cases where, you know, it does become something that's a tabloid, something that people wake up every day and they turn on their TVs, what's Nancy Grace saying today about top mom? And, you know, what's, uh, what's, what's the National Enquirer saying about OJ Simpson and what's happening to all of these people? It plays a really big role. So the media climate had changed.

• 47:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  Journalists were reporting now on the investigative errors in the case and openly questioning the prosecution's evidence because I think the whole foxy, noxy, sexpot thing had been played out. Like, people weren't really as interested in that anymore because there's only so far you can go with it. And so now the media and the journalists needed something else salacious. So it's like, oh, hey, the police messed up. Now, you know, read all about it. We have new salacious things here. We've played foxy, noxy out. Now we're going to tell you how the people you're supposed to trust cannot be trusted. And this is what's going to sell the papers and, and get people reading and watching and listening. So for the first time in years, things appeared to be moving in a more hopeful direction for

• 48:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  Amanda and Raphael. Despite all of that, though, the prosecution did not change course. Not that any of us are surprised. They maintained that the investigation had been flawless. They dismissed questions about the forensic evidence. They continued to rely on the same witnesses, Antonio and Nara, the, the homeless guy in the square and the neighbor. And in their view, nothing had changed. Amanda and Raphael were still guilty of murder. And like I said, I don't think any of us are stunned that these police officers and Giuliano McNee, they built to the tallest hill that they could possibly create to die on because they were not going to ever admit that they were wrong about anything. Now several witnesses from the original trial were called again and this time the inconsistencies in their testimony became impossible to ignore.

• 48:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  One of those witnesses was Antonio, the homeless man who had claimed to see Amanda and Rafael in the town center on the night of November 1st. But by this point, Antonio was imprisoned himself on drug charges and it came out that he had actually been dependent on heroin at the time of Meredith's murder. So he's an unreliable witness at this point. If he wasn't already to begin with, he is now kind of being seen as factually and openly unreliable. His testimony quickly fell apart after he said that when he saw Amanda and Rafael in the town center, there were many young people in costumes gathered there. And that detail made it clear he was describing Halloween night, the night before, not November 1st.

• 49:38Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep. How many times if I had a dollar for every time that's happened to me?

• 49:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Really?

• 49:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Where they were certain of a particular date and they end up saying something like, "Oh yeah, that was the night of the festival. I remember it like it was yesterday." I'm like, dude, the festival was three days prior to the night in question that you're so certain about. "Oh yeah, you're right, you're right, my bad."

• 49:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, you do that to me all the time.

• 50:00Derrick Levasseur?

  I do?

• 50:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, like I'll be saying something and I'll be like, "Yeah, I remember." And you're like, "No." And I'll say something else and you'll be like, "Yeah, that was the night before." You know, it's very common. Like when we're at Crime Con or something and there's weekend, I'll be like, "Oh, that happened on Friday night." And you'll be like, "No, that happened on Saturday night because that was the night we had that dinner at that place." And I'll be like, "Oh yeah." But how did he not remember that in the first trial? How did he not remember people in costumes in the first trial?

• 50:24Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, maybe he did say it and unfortunately, law enforcement or whoever ignored it. You know, I don't know if, I'd have to talk to him directly. Is it something that he just remembered later or was it something that was told to him in a way where they were like, "Oh no, we think you're wrong on that," you know?

• 50:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or it was something that he was told, that's not important, don't bring that up

• 50:44Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 50:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  During the testimony of the trial.

• 50:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 50:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  So with that, Antonio was no longer presented as a super witness and his testimony lost much of its weight. The defense introduced a new witness, a man named Mario, who had become close with Rudy while they were both in prison. So Mario testified that Rudy told him what happened to Meredith. And we get this all the time, by the way, these jailhouse informants. Well, I don't know if you agree, I would tend to place more weight and tend to believe these jailhouse informants more than I believe just random people on the street who don't remember what day it is and don't remember what time things are happening. Because, once you get to prison, you're Rudy, you're in prison, okay? The appeals court has dropped your sentence. At this point, it doesn't matter what you say, you can't

• 51:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  be retried for this, right? Is there double jeopardy in Italy? But it can't get much worse than it already is. You're in prison, day in, day out with the same people, and eventually, you're gonna talk about stuff, right? Is that what your experience is with these people?

• 51:42Derrick Levasseur?

  It's a crapshoot. It's a case-by-case basis where you have to really dive into the person that's relaying the information to you. And this is one of those instances where you have to figure out the why. Normally with witnesses, it's just like, hey, they just happened to be at the right place at right time. They may not necessarily want to be involved, but they have compelling information that could help, and they're willing to do so, in many cases reluctantly. But with prisoners, they got nothing but time, you have to wonder, what's the incentive behind it? And you always have to go in there with a certain level of skepticism, and try to get to the root of their reasoning behind it. And that could be as simple as getting some more commissary money, or getting a visit from a significant other, or whatever, you know, conjugal visits, you know, whatever

• 52:26Derrick Levasseur?

  it might be in that particular area. And if that's it, if it's that surface level, no problem. But if there's more to it where they're trying to get out of prison, trying to get a reduced sentence,

• 52:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 52:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Then you have to ask yourself, are they doing this for us, or are they doing this for them?

• 52:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  I've seen a lot of times where prisoners will be like, oh, I wanna, I wanna transfer to a less secure prison, or-

• 52:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Something simple.

• 52:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  I want, like you said, more access to this, or more freedom. And I will find that any time a jailhouse informant is getting something in return for their testimony, I find them to be far less reliable. Because you have nothing to lose either. Just like Rudy's got nothing to lose at this point, you have nothing to lose. You can just say whatever you want. And if you get some benefit from it, you could've just made something up.

• 53:06Derrick Levasseur?

  There's been multiple cases where the guy was lying out there, you know what, and then they, and then you track their information, and you can easily disprove what they're saying. But they're like, eh, I had nothing to lose, why not?

• 53:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  But do you find that like when people like Rudy go to prison and they've just been there for years at this point and they maybe start talking, you know, they're bored, they're they're playing cards, they're hanging out, watching TV with the other prisoners and and they'll start talking and somebody like Rudy who at this point, I mean, yeah, you pretty much got away with murder, you know?

• 53:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 53:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  You're not really serving a lot of time. The prosecution's arguing on your behalf to get your time reduced, you got away with murder and you're going to kind of feel a little like maybe braggadocious, you know, maybe like I want people to know, especially these hard, these other hardened criminals that he's with, I want them to know that I'm one of them, like I also did stuff that that wasn't, that wasn't great, I'm one of them.

• 54:01Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 54:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  And as far as eyewitness testimonies, I was in a town that I'm not familiar with a few days ago and we were driving and I saw something on the side of the road that looked suspicious to me and involved children. And I was kind of looking at it and then as I was looking at it a little bit more, I was like, oh, it's not suspicious, I'm wrong, I'm just a paranoid person. But then as I kept driving, I was like, if something had happened and then I was later asked, well, did you see something? I would have been able to tell the police what I thought I saw, but I wouldn't have been able to tell them where I was because I wasn't familiar with the area, like I was on the corner of this street and that street, you know, I wouldn't have been able to tell them that, I wouldn't really have been able to tell them what time of day it was because I wasn't looking at the clock. So I, I find eyewitness testimony in that situation to be very unreliable because, once

• 54:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  again, we've got Antonio here, now he's seeing Amanda and her boyfriend on Halloween night because their people are wearing costumes, this whole time, he's been either remembering it wrong or relaying it wrong. And so that's why I say I found, I find jailhouse informants, when they're not getting something in return from their testimony, to be a little bit more reliable than just a random eyewitness person who's not really understanding that what they're seeing at that point is, is going to be something they're questioned about later. So they're not looking at the clock, they're not looking at the location, they're not checking the date. So now this guy Mario, he testified that Rudy told him that he and an unnamed friend had encountered Meredith at a bar a few days before the murder.

• 55:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  On the night of November 1st, the two men went to the villa and surprised Meredith, asking her quote, "in an explicit manner," end quote, "to participate in a threesome." Mario testified that Meredith rejected them and ordered both men to leave the house. At that point Rudy asked her to use the bathroom and stayed there for no more than 10 to 15 minutes. When he came back into Meredith's room, she was on her back on the floor and Rudy's friend was holding her by her arms. And Mario said Rudy straddled her and began touching himself and then both men sexually assaulted Meredith as she fought back. Now Mario testified that Rudy's friend then pulled a knife with an ivory colored handle from his pocket. As Meredith tried to escape and turned her body, she was cut by the blade.

• 56:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mario said that when Meredith began bleeding and Rudy saw the blood on his hands, he let her go and tried to stop the bleeding with clothing. According to Mario, Rudy's friend became angry and said, quote, "Let's finish her. If not, this whore will have us rot in prison," end quote. Mario said Rudy's friend then stabbed Meredith multiple times while Rudy gathered clothes to try to stop the bleeding. When they realized Meredith was no longer breathing, that's when they left. Rudy said he then went to a club and met the same man who gave him money and told him to get the hell out of Italy. Mario said he asked Rudy how the broken window and rocket the villa fit into the story. But Rudy told him that while he was inside the house, he did not hear anything and he did not know how the window was broken.

• 56:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Um, so this is just what the 17th story that Rudy has told? What do you think about this story?

• 57:04Derrick Levasseur?

  I think Rudy's a pathological liar.

• 57:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  You think he's just trying to tell any story he can to make his, his like, impact or his part in it as minimal as possible?

• 57:14Derrick Levasseur?

  1,000%, which is what we see in a lot of cases. They can't completely remove themselves from the equation. There's too much evidence to support it. So at this point, it's not about trying to completely discredit the idea that you're there, it's trying to justify your presence. Oh, it's not what you think, even though it looks that way, you know, it's, I, I had a reason for being there. I'm, I'm a victim in this whole thing as well. Wrong place, wrong time. They'll usually start with, "I wasn't there at all." And then when you present the evidence that-

• 57:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or I was there in a consensual way because I've known Meredith and we've been flirting at parties and stuff.

• 57:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, that's that's initially that that's eventually what will happen, but initially we talk about interrogations, right? You go into interrogations and you start with, the first step is to get them to admit that they were there. That's number one. Just put them in the room, right? And they'll usually start with, I have no idea what you're talking about. I wasn't there. Then when you present the evidence that's indisputable, they'll say, ah, you know what? You got me. Hand up. Sorry. I was there. But here's the funny story about that. I was there because we were playing checkers. And the reason I didn't come forward is because I was afraid that this was gonna happen.

• 58:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:26Derrick Levasseur?

  You see, I was right. Then you work from there because now you've closed the walls.

• 58:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  And that was a valid fear because here we are.

• 58:32Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, here we are. But now you you you slowly close the walls in on them and then you start to narrow them down to a story. And then when they give you the reason for being there, you start to poke holes in that. So, yeah, this is a common occurrence with someone who can't tell you the truth because that would result with them going to prison.

• 58:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, because if you ask me at this point in the case, from what we know, I don't know anything else going forward from here. In my opinion, there's nobody there with Rudy. It's just Rudy, right? And he's got himself now, his friend stabbing Meredith, and he's gathering clothes from around the room to stop the bleeding at the same time that his friend, you know, because he's a good guy. He's really a good guy in his heart. He didn't want any of this to happen.

• 59:13Derrick Levasseur?

  More than likely, he is the only one there. I'm gonna present an alternate theory when we do our final thoughts.

• 59:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, let's take our last break in this episode and we'll be right back. So we're back. Now, remember, Rudy said he doesn't know how the window was broken. He doesn't know anything about the rock. Okay. Two other inmates who had been housed with Rudy at prison, they testified and corroborated Mario's account. So this is definitely what Rudy's saying. We don't know if it's true, but definitely what he's saying, in my opinion. But even so, none of this testimony could be used as direct evidence. It was considered hearsay unless Rudy himself confessed and testified. And here's the thing, he would have confessed to what really Really happened without any further consequences. By that point, Rudy's reduced sentence had been already upheld by the Supreme Court,

• 1:00:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  meaning his sentence could not be increased even if he did confess. So Rudy did not confess, though, surprise, surprise. Instead, he testified that Mario was lying, and he said that he always believed Amanda and Raphael were responsible for Meredith's murder. I wonder why? I wonder why? Because the prosecution went to the appeals court and got your 30-year sentence reduced to half of that. And so they probably did so, just in my opinion, allegedly, on the like acknowledgement of, "We're friends now, Rudy, right? We do something for you, you do something for us. So we're gonna get your your sentence cut in half. And if anyone ever asks you, Amanda and Raphael were there. That's all we ask from you."

• 1:00:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  And yeah, of course Rudy's gonna do it. He's been done a huge favor by the prosecution at this point. So by the end of June, more than six months into the trial, the independent DNA experts had completed their review of the evidence, and they testified that they identified more than 50 errors made by the forensic team. Fifty. I mean, one is unacceptable. Fifty. So they focused on the issues with the knife and the bra clasp, which we've already discussed. The prosecution responded by claiming the experts were biased in favor of the defense, because what else are you gonna counter with? So after the DNA experts were done testifying, the case moved into closing arguments. A final hearing was then scheduled for October 3rd.

• 1:01:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  On that day, Amanda and Raphael would be allowed to address the court one last time before the judges and jury began deliberation. Raphael spoke first. While on the stand, he removed a white rubber bracelet that read "Free Amanda and Raphael" in Italian. He told the court he had worn it since their conviction. Holding it up, he offered it to the court, saying he hoped he would no longer need it. He then said, quote, "I have never harmed anyone, never in my life," end quote. All right, all right, Raphael. I like the theatrics. I like the, you know, the emotion, the expression. He's probably at this point, he's like-

• 1:02:02Derrick Levasseur?

  Can't hurt him at this point.

• 1:02:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, he's like, "I dated this girl for like a week, man, and I find myself here, like, what the hell?" I just want to get out. Amanda spoke next. She later wrote that she was extremely nervous, knowing she was quite literally pleading for her life. Speaking once again in Italian, she told the court, quote, "I lost a friend in the most brutal, inexplicable way. My trust in the police has been betrayed. I had to face absolutely unjust charges, accusations, and I'm paying with my life for something that I did not do. I am not what they say I am. The perversion, the violence, the spite for life aren't a part of me. And I didn't do what they say I did. I didn't kill. I didn't rape. I didn't steal. I was not there. I wasn't present at this crime. I want to go home.

• 1:02:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  I want to go back to my life. I don't want to be punished, deprived of my life and my future for something I didn't do. Because I am innocent, Raphael is innocent. We deserve freedom. We didn't do anything not to deserve it. I have a great respect for this court, for the care shown during our trial, so I thank you." End quote. I think that's a good statement.

• 1:03:05Derrick Levasseur?

  By the way, the fact that they're both staying true to their statements and not turning on each other does give more credibility to the fact that they're both innocent. This would be the point at this time where they would say, hey, listen, I'm not doing any more prison time for that other person. Here's what actually happened. And neither one of them are doing that.

• 1:03:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think they already learned their lesson that...

• 1:03:23Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that, yeah, that's saying what law enforcement wants you to say may not work out in your favor.

• 1:03:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Because you know Raphael's not going to be the hugest fan of Amanda Knox at this point.

• 1:03:32Derrick Levasseur?

  Of course.

• 1:03:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  And he said that, you know, he's like, yeah. Not because she did anything wrong to him, but it's just like, now you represent this horrible thing, the most horrible thing that's ever happened to me. You represent that. You're intertwined with that, and there's no separating it. He's not her biggest fan, but I think they also both know, hey, this guy or this girl I knew for two weeks, I trust them more than this entire police force, who have already shown us that they will do anything it takes to put us behind prison and to put us behind bars.

• 1:03:59Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, we're united on that front where we're both being targeted here.

• 1:04:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, they understand that at this point, so absolutely. After Amanda and Raphael finished speaking, the judges and jury withdrew to deliberate. When they returned with a verdict, Amanda and Raphael were acquitted of Meredith's murder. Oof.

• 1:04:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Shocker.

• 1:04:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  That was tense. It is kind of a shocker, actually.

• 1:04:18Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, yeah, it is, but with everything that came out now, you got a fair jury to come forward and...

• 1:04:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  And the media, like, sort of the media presence shifting and...

• 1:04:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes.

• 1:04:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Actually talking about what the police were doing wrong and... And then the, you know, the, the DNA saying, hey, you made 50 mistakes and the prosecution being like, you're biased. That's all you have to say.

• 1:04:39Derrick Levasseur?

  Just one of those things might have done it, but yes, in totality, that would do it.

• 1:04:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm hmm. So Amanda was found guilty of slandering her boss, Patrick, and she was sentenced to three years, but that was time already served. She's been in prison for three years at this point, um, that which is crazy to think there was not a lot of time to process what was happening. Guards quickly escorted Amanda and Raphael to a van and transported them back to prison one final time so they could collect their belongings. And from there they were released.

• 1:05:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Wow. What a feeling that must have been.

• 1:05:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  I can't even like, oh, because you know, going in, you're probably like, I have no faith. I have no faith this is going to work and I could get more time. I could get life.

• 1:05:17Derrick Levasseur?

  It's a risk. Ballsy.

• 1:05:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  So outside journalists and paparazzi surrounded the prison, making it difficult for them to leave, but eventually they were able to get out. Raphael remained in Italy with his family. Amanda reunited with hers and they left Italy almost immediately, returning to the United States the following day. After some time, Amanda went back to the University of Washington where she majored in creative writing. She later wrote her book, Waiting to be Heard, which a lot of people have read, and this helped her process what had happened. And while proceeds allowed her to repay her parents for the money they had spent on her defense. She also connected with other exonerees and found community among them. Raphael wrote a book as well. It's called Honor Bound, My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox.

• 1:06:00Derrick Levasseur?

  That's a title.

• 1:06:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:02Derrick Levasseur?

  That's a title.

• 1:06:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Meredith's family did not read either book as they were deeply hurt and confused by the acquittals. Instead, Meredith's father, John, wrote his own book called Meredith. He said, quote, "I hope our telling the world about the enchanting, generous, kind person that Meredith was can help those whose lives she touched. I also hope this book might help to keep Meredith's case in the spotlight and in some small way to keep alive the hope that we might yet know the truth about her death." End quote. Yeah, that has to be confusing for Meredith's family.

• 1:06:30Derrick Levasseur?

  That's tough.

• 1:06:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  You know, you probably had the Italian police and Giuliano McNee like in their ear constantly like, oh, trust me. Yeah.

• 1:06:39Derrick Levasseur?

  But there's got to be a part of, if there's any common sense at all where you're like,

• 1:06:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Is this the right person? Is the person who actually did this still walking around out there? So I'm sure it's a really confusing time.

• 1:06:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, you definitely know Rudy's involved, so.

• 1:06:51Derrick Levasseur?

  Right, right. But is there other people? You want everyone at that point.

• 1:06:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  You do want everyone at that point.

• 1:06:56Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  And now Rudy's telling people in jail, there was some friend with him, so.

• 1:07:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Right, right.

• 1:07:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, you kind of want it. It's it's closed, but it's not ever going to be closed for Meredith's family.

• 1:07:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Hundred percent agree. Never, never will be.

• 1:07:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  So while Amanda and Raphael were thankful to be free, the case was not over yet. The Court of Appeals acquittal was sent to the Supreme Court, which could either affirm the decision or overturn the rulings and order a new trial. Oh, my gosh. So in March 2013, the Supreme Court overturned the acquittal, ruling that the Court of Appeals had failed to properly consider key evidence, including the possibility of multiple attackers and discrepancies in Amanda and Raphael's alibis. The case was reopened and a new trial was ordered. Now, at this point, if I'm Amanda, I'm like, they, I'm glad for you guys. I'm not coming back.

• 1:07:43Derrick Levasseur?

  No, no. No shot.

• 1:07:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like, I'm all set with Italy.

• 1:07:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay.

• 1:07:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Thanks, but no thanks. Appreciate the invite.

• 1:07:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  I'll see other places. Yeah, exactly.

• 1:07:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Just send the card back. No.

• 1:07:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  I would, I would be absolutely just like, are you guys kidding?

• 1:07:58Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 1:07:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like, are you, this is ridiculous at this point, so.

• 1:08:01Derrick Levasseur?

  Now, technically, the FBI, they could get involved, but they don't have to.

• 1:08:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Are they going to?

• 1:08:06Derrick Levasseur?

  No, no, no.

• 1:08:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  You'd have to be extradited. That's, yeah, that's not happening. So Meredith's family spoke publicly following the ruling. Her sister Stephanie said she hoped the decision would finally bring an end to their ordeal, so the family could begin to, quote, "remember Meredith," end quote. She also said that regardless of the outcome, the family still had no sense of justice, explaining, quote, "I think we are still on a journey for the truth, and it may be the fact that we don't ever really know what happened that night, which is obviously something we'll have to come to terms with," end quote. I think that's absolutely the truth at this point.

• 1:08:38Derrick Levasseur?

  At this now, the mud, the water's just too muddied.

• 1:08:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  The investigation was done so poorly.

• 1:08:42Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep.

• 1:08:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  So a new retrial began in September of 2013. Amanda remained in Seattle and did not attend, as she was not required to be present. The prosecution continued to argue that multiple people were involved in Meredith's murder, but their theory had shifted. This time, they claimed that Amanda and Meredith argued over Rudy's presence in the apartment or over money, and that the argument somehow escalated into a situation where Rudy, Raphael, and Amanda all took part in killing her. This is what, this is what we call reaching.

• 1:09:11Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  They're like, this happened or this happened. Um, now despite the defense pointing out all the holes in the prosecution's case, Amanda and Raphael were once again found guilty.

• 1:09:22Derrick Levasseur?

  Unreal.

• 1:09:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Amanda, I can't take it. Amanda received a longer sentence this time, 28 and a half years, while Raphael's sentence remained 25 years. Once again, both of them were stunned. They believed that it had become clear by that point that they were innocent. They appealed again to the Supreme Court and arguments were heard in March of 2015. If the court upheld the convictions, Amanda would be extradited to Italy, a process that could take months or even years. However, Raphael would be taken directly back to prison, which Amanda said she worried about. Now, if I was Raphael, I'd be getting the hell out of Italy, too.

• 1:09:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, he'd have to sneak out, but I'm sure they had a lockdown on his passport.

• 1:09:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  As soon as I got out of prison, I'd be finding a new country to live in.

• 1:10:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, hop on a train, go somewhere. The hearing lasted only two days, and at its conclusion, the Supreme Court acquitted both Amanda and Raphael, and that decision was final.

• 1:10:10Derrick Levasseur?

  Thank God.

• 1:10:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  There would be no further trials or appeals. They were officially free. This is crazy to me because it's like, why are you wasting time? Like, what is this bouncing between courts? What's happening here? Amanda's conviction for supposedly lying about the police hitting her was not a part of this. For the record, that conviction has stuck her slander of the poor police.

• 1:10:30Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm sure she's losing sleep over it.

• 1:10:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. Poor police, poor Rudy. Now, while Amanda and Raphael were now free, Meredith's family was left in a painful limbo. They believed the justice system had failed Meredith and failed them. They also felt that Meredith's life had been overshadowed by years of appeals and legal battles. Absolutely, I agree. And despite everything that had happened, they were still left without clear answers about what really happened to her. It was an impossible position to be in and one that would only become more difficult. In 2021, Rudy Gade was released from prison after serving just 13 years.

• 1:11:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Unreal. Unreal. I'm not even gonna start. It's gonna get my blood boiling already. But anyways, yeah, that's our justice system, even overseas. It's

• 1:11:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:11:10Derrick Levasseur?

  Keeping an innocent girl in prison for the rest of her life for at least, you know, 28.5 years. But yeah, this guy gets out after 13.

• 1:11:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  A theoretically evidentiary backed innocent person when all the evidence points towards Rudy and the prosecution's like, come on, give him a break, man.

• 1:11:27Derrick Levasseur?

  Admittedly puts himself at the crime scene hours before, yeah.

• 1:11:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  His DNA puts himself at the crime scene, you know, he, he admits to having sex with her, like, come on. It was a tough pill to swallow, obviously, because this meant that no one was behind bars, serving time for the horrible things that had been done to Meredith. Rudy did not remain out of trouble for long, though. In 2023, a woman he had previously dated went to police and reported that Rudy, so, once again, surprise, surprise, raped and violently assaulted her in September of 2022.

• 1:11:56Derrick Levasseur?

  So the person they let out went and did it again.

• 1:12:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, within a year of getting out.

• 1:12:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Now another victim. This isn't the time or place for it, but we really got to have a system where when these judges let these people out early, they're, they're held accountable.

• 1:12:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, they have the judicial immunity.

• 1:12:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I, I'm just saying.

• 1:12:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  The prosecution is to blame for this, though. They're also the ones who went on his behalf to argue to get him out early to begin with.

• 1:12:22Derrick Levasseur?

  Ridiculous.

• 1:12:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  Cutting his sentence in half. So this woman also accused Rudy of mistreatment and stalking. Surprise, surprise. Rudy was arrested and charged, and as far as I can tell, his trial is scheduled to begin in early February of 2026. So this happened to her in 2022, and he's not even going on trial for it until next month, 2026, February. So while Rudy was allegedly violently assaulting women again, Amanda continued her work helping the wrongfully convicted. She became an activist who speaks publicly about wrongful convictions and the damage they cause, not only to the wrongfully convicted, but to their families as well. So in 2025, Amanda released another book and worked with Hulu on a multi-part series about her story titled The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox. Meredith's family has

• 1:13:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  been outspoken about their unhappiness with these projects. Their attorney went as far as to accuse Amanda of attempting to profit from Meredith's murder. In a statement, he said, quote, "In general, neither I nor the Kercher family have been pleased with the initiatives Amanda has undertaken over the years, as they are unjustified and disrespectful of poor Meredith's memory," end quote. And it is understandable why Meredith's family feels that way. I completely understand. They were left with nothing. No Meredith, no one serving time for what happened to her, no clear answers about how or why she died. There's no resolution for them, no sense of justice, no version of events that brings peace, but. I also understand Amanda's perspective because if she is totally innocent, what happened to her, she's also a victim. It was horrible what happened to her and I would,

• 1:13:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  I would think that just like, you know, when somebody's been abused or, um, you know, somebody tries to hurt you and you get away, like what we're going to talk about, you know, I don't know, can I talk about what our next series is?

• 1:14:06Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, you're always the gatekeeper on it. I, I think you can.

• 1:14:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right. I'm not going to gatekeep this time because I'm very excited about this case because I've been researching and writing already and-

• 1:14:13Derrick Levasseur?

  She's already sent me the first script.

• 1:14:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  I've already sent the first script. I'm super into this case. We're doing Elizabeth Smart. You guys voted. Uh, there's so much more to this case than I thought there was, but for instance, Elizabeth Smart, what happened to her, she has used that to become such a big voice and such a big advocate for, um, sexual assault victims and kidnapping victims and that's what she feels she needs to do and that's helping her heal from that, you know, it's hard to tell somebody who's also been victimized, hey, shut up, you know, shut up about what happened to you. Now, we do know that what remains is Meredith's legacy. That's something that no one can take away from the Kercher, something no one can take away from Meredith. Her sister Stephanie said, quote, "Meredith will always be remembered for her own fight for life and yet in her

• 1:14:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  absence, her love and personality continues to shine. She will forever hold a lasting legacy in friendship and kindness that no media can change," end quote. Now, what I also find interesting is there's another documentary coming out. So, yeah, Amanda Knox may be going a little hard with the documentaries and this one is directed by her husband. It's his directorial debut and in this, in this documentary, she goes back to Italy and she confronts Giuliano Magnini. And we don't know what what happens, right? But I kind of have an idea of what happened when they sat down and talked because the documentary hasn't come out yet.

• 1:15:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's called Mouth of the Wolf: Amanda Knox Returns Daily. It's going to be on Hulu. I think it's coming out at the end of this month, actually. I think it's coming out January 26th or something, if I saw it correctly. We see Amanda and McNee like meeting and it kind of seems like maybe he apologized. So it says, "The documentary takes us through multiple trips and ultimately the face-to-face meeting with McNee. The result is the most unlikely relationship." Amanda Knox says, quote, "I certainly didn't set out to forgive him. I set out to understand him. But the funny thing about truly understanding a person is that you come to care about them, warts and all. Is that forgiveness? Sort of.

• 1:16:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  I've accepted him for who he is and believe that the harm he caused me was due to a lot of things, but not outright intentional malice." End quote. This article continues to say the two now keep in touch. Amanda said, quote, "He sends me a message almost daily." And, you know, it's not like he's pouring his heart out daily. Sometimes it's just like, oh, I saw this YouTube video and I thought you might appreciate it, something like that. End quote. "I don't know if I could forgive him. I don't know." Because she's like, "I get like the harm he caused to me was like because of stuff he had going on, but I don't think he intentionally did. Like, I don't care. I don't care because when you're an adult in a position of power like that, just like I don't care that when parents abuse or hurt their children, it's like broken people make

• 1:17:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  other broken people hurt people hurt people. When parents are broken and they choose to have children and then they repeat the cycle of abuse and they don't break that cycle, I don't care what they went through either. You know, you were in a position of power. You're the adult in the room and whatever happened to you was your job to deal with before you put yourself in that position of power to completely derail and destroy somebody else's life. And I don't think I could forgive him and I definitely would not be having him text me daily." I don't know. What do you think?

• 1:17:43Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm coming from a different angle here. I don't know McNee, but what I will say is that we talk about investigators having a confirmation bias and it's pretty self explanatory. It's a bias, right? Not everyone is aware of that bias. There's a, there's a scale here, right? There's a gamut of where this could be. You have detectives who outright know that the person they're going after is innocent, but for whatever reason, they're, they're going after them, whatever their motive is, who knows? But they know without a shadow of a doubt that the person they're going after did not commit that crime. Then there's somewhere in the middle and then there's the other end of the spectrum where you have someone who again, they're wrong, but believes in their heart

• 1:18:26Derrick Levasseur?

  that they got the right person, that whatever the reason is, they believe that they have the right person who committed this crime. And in their mind, they may cut some corners, but they're doing it for Meredith, right? And obviously that's the wrong approach. I'm not justifying anything they're doing. And ultimately, at the end of the day, it's Amanda's choice. She has found a way to forgive him and maybe through their conversations in her mind has come to the conclusion that McNee was more on that side of the scale, that it wasn't malicious in nature and it was purely for Meredith and to get the truth. And obviously he's wrong. But I always say, and I stand behind this, my biggest nightmare as a detective has always been to find out that

• 1:19:09Derrick Levasseur?

  I put someone behind bars who is innocent of that crime. And there's an old saying, and I've said it a million times, I'm not the one who came up with it, but I'd rather a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man go to prison for a crime they didn't commit. And that's how I've always operated on a very conservative approach to my investigations where there's not a shadow of a doubt that they did it. And so I hear you. I don't know if I'd be able to forgive them either, but maybe Amanda's better people than us. Again, it's, it's, it's not, I don't think it's binary, right? I think there's, I think even you saying what you're saying, if. At the end of this all taking place, you had the opportunity to sit down with this person and you heard their side of it and then they truly apologized for it in a way

• 1:19:54Derrick Levasseur?

  where they meant it. I don't know. I think you have a bigger heart than you're than you're saying right now.

• 1:19:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hmm.

• 1:19:59Derrick Levasseur?

  But it would take a lot. It would take a lot.

• 1:20:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't know if I give them the opportunity to sit down.

• 1:20:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Maybe not. Maybe not.

• 1:20:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's like, why am I going to give you an opportunity that you didn't give me?

• 1:20:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. I'm with you. I'm with you. And she went through hell. So it's it's it's not our choice to make, but who knows what his intention really was? He could have been lying to her when he talked to her more recently, right? So who knows? I'll actually, and this isn't my normal thing, but that sounds like something I'd want to watch.

• 1:20:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  I agree.

• 1:20:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Especially after covering the series.

• 1:20:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  I want to see what his, uh...

• 1:20:27Derrick Levasseur?

  What is, yeah, what he has to say, how he says it.

• 1:20:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. What are what are your reasonings for coming up with fanfiction about how this young girl took part in these sex games that ended in this woman being violently stabbed to death? And why did you? And here's really the reason I think that Amanda shouldn't forgive him and why I don't think the Kercher family should forgive him either because you know he spearheaded having Rudy get out earlier than he should.

• 1:20:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 1:20:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  So...

• 1:20:51Derrick Levasseur?

  All right. Final thoughts?

• 1:20:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  I will not ever say, hey, maybe Amanda and Raphael weren't at some point at that apartment or that flat that night. It's possible that they could have been or or weren't where they said they were. The whole phones turning off at the same time thing. And I mean, really, that's that's kind of A, you know, and them not remembering their alibis. It's likely that everything they said, they were home, they turned off their phones so she couldn't get called back into work. They went to sleep. They watched a movie, had sex, went to sleep. Probably, you know, most likely true. Is it possible that Amanda may have gone back to the flat that night and then she just didn't want to say she did, even if Meredith

• 1:21:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  wasn't there yet, or even if she didn't say anything happened because she didn't want to place herself at the scene of the crime on the night of the crime? It's it is possible. How did Rudy get in? I think it was only Rudy there. I think it was only Rudy. I think Rudy was the one who killed Meredith. I don't know what his motive was. I don't know why she would let him in, or maybe the door just wasn't locked. Maybe she came home and forgot to lock the door behind her and he let himself in. I don't know. I'll never know. I like, like Meredith's sister Stephanie said, we'll probably never know what happened. He will never fess up about it. It looks like he's gonna go back on trial for a very similar crime. So I think it's safe to say that this is not out of character for him. Whereas for Amanda and Raphael, what,

• 1:22:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  what happened to Meredith is, I think, completely out of character. And they haven't done anything like that, or have been associated with anything like that before or since. So I think it was just Rudy. And I don't know. I don't know how he got there. And I don't know if Amanda was involved in maybe introducing them, and she just didn't want to put that connection or that tie to her there. But I don't think she was involved with Meredith's murder at all, at this point. And I'm glad that we went through this because I feel more settled about it than I have ever before.

• 1:22:50Derrick Levasseur?

  No, I'm with you. I'm with you for the most part. My, my perspective, number one, thinking about Meredith's family, because at the end of the day, that's what this is about. Yes, Amanda and Raphael are victims as well, but they're still walking around, getting to live their lives, and, and Meredith is not. And I'm sure it's always going to be difficult to hear someone making money, profiting off your daughter's tragedy. So I don't blame them for feeling the way they feel. And the fact that the killer is out there living their life, they're just, to put it bluntly, they got screwed in this deal. I don't know how else to say it. There's no, there's no sugarcoating it. And they have to relive this trauma every single day, and I feel for them. But as far as Amanda's concerned, she is also a victim,

• 1:23:35Derrick Levasseur?

  and her life was changed forever. And It's her, it's her story to tell, you know, it's her story to tell and she needs closure for her as well. And maybe going in a meeting with McNee is part of that, you know? I don't know if she's doing this for the money per se. I think she's using the production money to get the answers she wants, which is also within her right. As far as the actual case, I'm with you on most of it. I, I think I had said earlier this episode, like, maybe there's another theory. I do not believe in this theory. The only fiber that you could hold on to here is that if Amanda and Raphael were present just in the, in the property, maybe they were doing their own thing in their own room. But if they were there, maybe just as witnesses, Rudy has never implicated them and they've never implicated Rudy. Maybe because they just

• 1:24:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  He has implicated them. He said they were there.

• 1:24:22Derrick Levasseur?

  To the point where he's put them in the room, but not actually part of the crime. Yeah. And I, and that could be because he knows if he brings them any more into the equation, they could bury them. Now, I want to say it one more time. I don't think that's the case. I don't. I think more than likely what happened here is how it looks where you have two people who are scared and were pressured and were, were put into corners and forced to say things that weren't true. And they thought that, they thought that was going to help them. I think where we are right now is Rudy is the guy. And it doesn't really matter how he got into the apartment. He got in, I guess you could say that if Amanda let him in, that would be part of it. But I think more than likely it's what you said.

• 1:25:06Derrick Levasseur?

  He was either invited over, came over and was looking for someone else. And Meredith happened to be alone. He could have said he needed to use the restroom or there's the possibility. And it doesn't make Meredith a bad person that they did have a previous conversation and they were friends and she wanted to remain friends. He maybe wanted more. He came over and maybe he used the restroom and then they were in her room because Amanda was supposed to come home and get ready for work. And there was a misconnection there where he thought it was going one way. She was anticipating it being something else. He didn't like that. So he took advantage of her. He sexually assaulted her and then realized at that point he couldn't let her go. And so he did what he did.

• 1:25:47Derrick Levasseur?

  And got out of there as fast as he could. And because of his history, because of his familiarity and experience with robberies and understanding how he used to carry out those crimes or how he was carrying out those crimes, those modus operandi. That's when he staged the scene to look similar to what he had done in the past. I really do think the robbery gone wrong is out the window and that this was a staged crime scene and Rudy Gade is the guy and and they got the right person. He just clearly didn't serve enough time, but my final word. Because I always try to tie this back to you guys, everyone listening and watching. Number one, there's multiple victims here, which is why we have both their names in the title.

• 1:26:24Derrick Levasseur?

  But number two, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you are being interviewed or interrogated by law enforcement, coming from the cop. Get an attorney. Don't say a word. It doesn't mean you're guilty by having an attorney present, but have someone there who does it all the time. It only helps you. If you don't need them, no problem. Maybe it costs you a couple bucks. There's a big difference between that and years behind bars for a crime you didn't commit. So I can tell you right now that even as a cop and P I. If they called me tomorrow for a crime, and even if I knew I was innocent, I'm bringing an attorney with me.

• 1:27:04Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm having someone else there to represent me and be a witness to what's transpiring. I'll still speak with them. I'll be cooperative. But I'm going to have a, I'm going to have legal representation. And to me, other than the fact that this was a tragic set of circumstances where Meredith and her family truly did not get the justice they deserve. The secondary thing here is learn from Amanda and even though she was young, I'm sure if she was sitting here right now, she would tell you one of her biggest regrets is not having an attorney present at all times.

• 1:27:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think that Amanda and Raphael, they thought that, okay, the cops are on our side.

• 1:27:39Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, they can trust them.

• 1:27:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or, or the cops are on the side of the truth. So even if we say something that's not true, like just to get out of here, just so we can collect our heads. Then the cops will work out that later and then they'll come back and be like, why'd you guys say that? It wasn't true. You weirdos, you little weirdos. And then just move on and they didn't realize how. Intent the police were to hold their statements against them and to almost find a way to like blame them for it no matter what. And so they just handed them that on a silver platter because it was when they made those those false statements in the police station. That's when it all turned for them.

• 1:28:13Derrick Levasseur?

  That was it.

• 1:28:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  And there was really nothing. It was a downhill, you know, rolling ball at that point. Then nobody could stop besides, you know, the police and Juliana McNeeny and they weren't going to do that. So yeah, I think that's what they thought. They were like, they were young. They didn't, they'd never been in any legal trouble before. You know, they're probably like the police are on the side of the right and the good and the truth. And so like, we'll just say whatever we have to like, we're so confused right now. We'll just get out of here. And then later the police will come back and be like, hey, we figured it all out and you guys weren't involved at all. Why just say you were? But that is not how it goes. Do not, and I don't want to say don't trust the police because you should be able to, but don't blindly trust the police.

• 1:28:51Derrick Levasseur?

  No, protect yourself.

• 1:28:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  Protect yourself.

• 1:28:53Derrick Levasseur?

  That's coming from law enforcement. Protect yourself. You know, instead of having to experience it yourself, learn from the nightmare that Amanda lived. I think that is part of the reason she continues to tell her story. You can be innocent and still get yourself legal representation. And I think that's the takeaway here on that side of things, which is to, yep, if you want to talk to them, great, but make sure you have someone there who's on your side and working for you.

• 1:29:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, you can't, you can't trust anyone.

• 1:29:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Nope, nope.

• 1:29:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  You can't trust anyone. I don't care if they wear a badge or, or not.

• 1:29:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Nope, nope. And you never know. And so that's, that's the big takeaway here. And we hope you guys got a lot out of this series. It was a five part series. This is a known case. We know that we probably didn't get every single detail right. And you don't agree with all of our opinions, but that's what happens when we take on these big cases. But that's why we do what we do. That's why we're crime weekly. We're going to keep bringing them to you. Please like, comment, subscribe on YouTube. If you're on audio, whether it's Apple Podcasts or Spotify, leave a review on Apple, leave a comment on Spotify. They have comments there as well. We're always checking them out. We will be back next week with a new crime weekly news and the start of our new series, Elizabeth Smart. I'm going to hope at some point she has a lot going on right now, but hopefully

• 1:30:07Derrick Levasseur?

  we can get her on the podcast. She is someone I know. I did work with her on America's Most Wanted, but you know, that's her story to tell. And maybe she just wants to stay in the shadows. It wouldn't surprise me if that's the case, but.

• 1:30:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Really great case, by the way, like I am.

• 1:30:20Derrick Levasseur?

  You didn't know, you, you said you've been diving into it and you're looking forward to it. And I haven't really. I haven't researched the details of it. I heard it from her. We talked off camera, but we don't, I don't sit there and go, tell me what you went through. So I'm looking forward to hearing about it.

• 1:30:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  I have researched the hell out of this case. I, and there's a big snowstorm coming, okay? So it is likely-

• 1:30:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, we're actually recording this before the snowstorm, FYI. We usually record on Monday.

• 1:30:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I told Derek, I was like, man, it's getting pretty bad out there. But there's a big snowstorm coming and I'm expecting to be snowed in for a few days. And this is what I will be doing. I mean, I've gone through psychiatric reports. I've read the book that Elizabeth wrote, two of them. I read the book her parents wrote. I'm, oh, the psychiatric evaluations and the court testimonies. I've gone through all of it. And it goes so much deeper than I thought, because I've always heard about it from Elizabeth's point of view, which should be the point of view we care about it from. And, you know, she really never wanted to focus on Brian David Mitchell. And like, she even has said, I don't want to know why he did what he did, because to understand something, you have to really

• 1:31:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  like, put yourself there. And I don't want to be able to put myself there. I don't want to have to. So I really never heard a lot about his background and like, who he was. And I've gone deep in his childhood and there's stuff happening. And then Wanda Barzy, her stuff. Wow, guys, this is gonna be a ride and I can't wait to take it with you guys and go through this with Derek, because I know we're gonna have opinions.

• 1:31:50Derrick Levasseur?

  One more thing, because I forgot about it in this Crime Con. Some people-

• 1:31:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Crime Con.

• 1:31:53Derrick Levasseur?

  Some people have reached out to us-

• 1:31:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Derek, don't forget Crime Con.

• 1:31:56Derrick Levasseur?

  Some people have reached out and said, hey, we already bought our tickets. We didn't put the code in. You can, you can email them at [email protected]. Let them know you want to sign up under Crime Weekly. They'll add you to our list and they'll also give you that 10% off retroactively. So [email protected]. If you have signed up and didn't apply the code, it's not too late to do so. We hope to see you all there. That's gonna do it for us, guys. We'll see you next week. Everyone stay safe out there. Have a good night.

• 1:32:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bye, guys.