A Kiss is Just a Kiss: How Amanda Knox Was Transformed By the Media into a Monster

    
Admit it. Most of us have a taste for the salacious. We may be horrified but if we weren't curious about murder and rape, there wouldn't be a seemingly endless number of books, films, TV shows, websites and discussions on social media on the subject. Our appetites are so insatiable there is more than one cable channel dedicated to real life crime mostly of the murderous kind.

There are many types of murder but motive is sometimes broken down into three categories: money, revenge and sex. Revenge can include murders meant to make political statements -- like those perpetrated by Ted Kaczinski, the Unabomber, but primarily are focused on personal revenge.

Sexual murders do not necessarily include sex and it is the murder itself which is sexually satisfying whereas other sex murders are primarily focused on rape and the murder is a necessary step so the perpetrator may avoid detecting.  getting caught. These crimes are most often stranger murders where the perpetrator has no connection to the victim. They are beyond our ability to rationally understand and certainly to relate with or make sense of and thus there is a field of study dedicated to understanding these horrific crimes and the minds of those who commit them.  & yet which we must learn to understand so they can be solved.  The most common type of sex murder is committed by the  serial rapist whose primary motivation is sexual in nature and the murder itself is committed to avoid detection. In either case, sex crimes have an understandably powerful impact on society and on individuals and cause all manner of passionate responses.

Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox's roommate, was the victim of a sex crime.  She was raped and violently sexually attacked and she was murdered and left to die (or dead). She lived in an obscure area in a small town which suggests she may have been stalked and observed her for a while before the attack occurred. The brutality of the crime was excessive. She had multiple knife wounds, many more bruises and male DNA belonging to Rudy Guede was found inside her.  48 Hours (Amanda Knox: Update) reported that it took Meredith Kercher two hours to die. I have since been told that she likely died much more quickly so I'll have to research that further.  

According to data gathered by the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, a crime like this is nearly always committed by one person. That person is nearly always male (97% of the time) and that person nearly always has prior offenses, usually for peeping, stalking, molesting and rape (to name a few). A brutal murder, the kind of murder Meredith Kercher fell victim to, is not someone's "first" crime. Criminals of this type, sex criminals, work their way up to rape and murder. They nearly always get caught at something, nearly all have rap sheets.

Detectives experienced with murders like this don't need to call Quantico to know they are looking for a lone male. The idea that a 20-year-old female college student with no record, no mental illness, no history of violence or abuse (as victim or perpetrator) could get carried away by lust and suddenly partake in a violent murder, killing with her bare hands, is pretty much unheard of.  Except maybe in the movies.
  
Prosecutor Guliano Mignini must watch a lot of movies. But there is also evidence is that Mignini himself possesses a rather twisted mind. How titillating, the idea of an orgy which included two beautiful girls. Watching beautiful coltish Amanda Knox kiss her young boyfriend sparked Mr. Mignini's imagination. His fantasies ran wild.

I believe what he saw in a Amanda Knox was a beautiful girl whom he wanted but knew he could never have. I believe he hated her for that "rejection", hated that his chance to stand where Raffaele stood was long past. I believe the coldness Mignini saw was simply the fact that Amanda Knox was unavailable to him. Knox's sweetness, her warmth, her youthful  sexuality--these were turned off in his presence instinctively. And besides, who is "warm" after finding out her roommate was dead and she narrowly missed being murdered herself.

The crime scene did not suggest anything like an orgy had occurred. Rather, there was evidence of a single perpetrator. Only Rudy Guede's DNA was found at the scene.  It was by all accounts the work of a  lone criminal, of one man (a conclusion made by famed FBI profiler John Douglas, author of "Mind Hunter" in his interview with award-winning journalist Krista Errickson, WomanOnAWire.blogspot.com).    So how did Amanda Knox get blamed. How did she get demonized? What made police decide, that girl is a monster?

She kissed her boyfriend in front of her apartment.

Let me repeat that. Looking as if she were in shock, Knox KISSED her boyfriend in front of the apartment in view of everyone. Oh sure, there was other "evidence" too: She  was called "foxy knoxy" at school (meaning she must have been some kind of slut); oh, and she did a cartwheel while she was at the police station.  No doubt after sitting for hours and hours in an interrogation room she was trying to shake off the stress. And being 20 and naive, she was unaware of the fact that doing cartwheels while in a police station is, as we know, "clear evidence" of guilt.

The most damning "evidence" of Knox's guilt was that she told the police her boss was involved in the crime.. That does seem suspicious. Of course what one doesn't hear is that this piece of info was the result of hours and hours of interrogation in which Amanda was in custody without a lawyer. She was cajoled, threatened, yelled at, called all manner of names. They demanded she confess or to tell them who did it. One or the other. Confess.  Tell us who was with you.  Were you meeting him? Was he there? Tell us the truth. For hours and hours. The last text she'd gotten before the crime was from her boss and her reply to that was "see ya." That must mean they were going to meet up later for the orgy that turned into a murder. Tell us he did it or you will sit her for another 40 hours.  Over and over.  So finally she did. Now why would Amanda Knox tell police her boss was involved in the crime when she knew for a fact he wasn't there? It might be enough to convince you of her guilt if you weren't familiar with the "coerced confession."

I used to think that I would never falsely confess and certainly wouldn't ever point the finger at someone else if I were wrongfully accused, but now I know differently. I've seen hours of videotapes of grueling interrogations in which suspects can't speak to anyone, are plied with soft drinks, not allowed bathroom breaks, left alone for hours, lied to, told they are LYING over and over and told things like, "just admit you were THERE and we will let you have a break", I understand the phenomenon better. If you refuse even that, the next tactic is to demand, intimidate, wheedle and cajole you into telling them who was there.  So after many hours with interrogators tag-teaming Knox in a now-custodial situation, demanding she admit she was there, a  new cop comes in and says, just tell us who was there then.  It was your boss, wasn't it? We KNOW he was there but if you corroborate this we can move forward. Just tell us what we already know and you can leave. It's a kind of brainwashing. The weariness, the need to get out of the room, the belief they DO know something and the slow loss of any grip on reality, I see this might easily lead to a suspect giving false information. It's not quite "beating a confession out of someone like the old days" but it may be worse.  And given that 25% of DNA exonerations involve false (coerced) "confessions", clearly it's not uncommon.

But WHY  was it so easy to see Amanda Knox as a cold-blooded killer?

Why were 54 forensic errors made in the investigation?

Why didn't experienced detectives see the case more clearly?

 How did Mignini sell this baseless story to the press and how did they sell it to us?

I can see Amanda Knox more clearly now. I too thought she might be guilty. As a result I feel
a duty to understand why a bunny  looked just like a zebra to me and why I never once asked why a zebra didn't have stripes or hooves or a mane.      

Think about this: Often when someone is arrested for heinous crimes (The Green River Killer
for example) neighbors &
acquaintances comment, "He seemed like such a nice guy" or "I never would have believed "Joe" was capable of that." It's so common to hear this it's cliche.

The reason you don't suspect your neighbor or co-worker of murder is you see them through a particular lens. You assume they are like you, good people at heart. You don't really know them but ascribe to them the same moral compass you possess.  It's really just projection. Smoke and mirrors. We see them as we believe they MUST be.

No surprise that this  can easily happen in reverse. Once you see someone led into court by guards, her image flashed on the screen next to the words "murder suspect," you start to see evil in a person's face.  Given that we all have the capacity for evil, it's not really so odd. Once someone is arrested it's just hard to seem innocent. If you speak out loudly, and protest your innocence, you are "filled with anger." You protest too much. Or you are just another guilty liar.

If you don't deny your guilt emphatically cops say, if someone accused me I'd be mad. I'd tell the world I didn't do it.

If you hire a lawyer too quickly, it looks "suspicious." If you sit quietly in court while your name is sullied you are emotionless or must be guilty. If you cry, you are crying because you got caught and you are selfish. If you do not cry you are cold. Once you are accused,
every word, every gesture takes on an air of guilt. For example...

A KISS IS JUST A KISS.

 What might have been an innocent comforting kiss by Amanda Knox's boyfriend, is interpreted by Prosecutor Guiliano Mignini as meaning Amanda is cold and callous. I believe he titillated as well, which led to fodder for his "orgy theory".

I admit, I too, started seeing the "kiss" or series of kisses as sinister. Especially as it was played over and over again. I also saw Amanda Knox casting blame on her boss as an indicator of guilt. Again- I did not have the facts.  I believe I even held the silly nickname against her, hearing it reported over and over like it mattered at all.

One thing that was really held back was the absolute guilt of Rudy Guede, the fact that he ran, the fact that there was absolutely NO connection whatsoever that was ever found between Knox, Raffaele  and Guede. Not a call, text, email, sighting, or anything else.

It was not public knowledge that Guede originally denied that Amanda and Raffaele were there and said he was the sole killer. And that once he realized that because they were on trial, saying the two helped with the crime would reduce his sentence from 30 years to 16. Clearly he had a motive.

I never felt convinced Amanda Knox was guilty but I take responsibility for accepting a media lynching at face value and not looking at it more closely.

I am now 100% convinced Amanda Knox is innocent.  The forensics, Mignini's agenda, the psychology behind the crime and the DNA certainly make her innocence clear In the end it was listening to Amanda Knox speak about her innocence and having a chance to hear both from her and  her family and friends who she is, that removed any doubt I could have had.

If one thing comes of this horrible case,  it may be that more and more people will see how easy it really is to convict someone guilty. And that may well lead to less wrongful convictions. As awful as her experience was, I hope one day Amanda Knox will feel able to share her story with others. She may find meaning in that she never imagined she'd find. And though I don't know Amanda, after hearing her speak so passionately and eloquently on the topic of justice and her own innocence,  I have a hunch that she will.

-Claudia Miles                  
  

http://www.csom.org/pubs/female_sex_offenders_brief.pdf