Homicide Case Study - Amanda Knox

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1.      Identify the main elements of the investigative process involved in the case.

The Amanda Knox case is a worldwide popular case which took place in Italy. The main elements of the investigative process involved in the case include firstly, Ms Kercher’s body being found with a stab wound in the throat in an apartment shared with an American student, Amanda Knox, as well as two other Italian females. This occurred on the 2nd of November in 2007 (ABC News, 2014). A little afterwards, Knox falsely accuses Patrick Diya Lumumba who was later released, on the 20th of November, from prison without charges with an alibi and no clear evidence that he had murdered Kercher. On the 19th of November DNA from a man called Rudy Guede was found around Kercher’s room and the bathroom, as well as from a vaginal sample from Kercher (CNN Staff, 2014). Ms Knox, and Mr Raffaele Sollecito, Ms Knox’s former boyfriend, and also Guede were formally charged with murder in October 2008. Guede receiving 30 years jail, but later reduced to 16 years on appeal in 2009 (ABC News, 2014).On January 16th 2009, Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito begin their trial, by order of Judge Paolo Micheli, on murder charges. They are sentenced to 26 years and 25 years jail respectively, for murdering Ms Kercher (ABC News, 2014). In 2010 on June 1st Knox faces slander charges for saying that Italian police had hit her, as well as threatening her to intimidate and pressure her, thus leading her to falsely accuse Lumumba of murdering Kercher. On June 19th, 2011 Forensic specialists who were called in to re-check the evidence inform the court that the DNA evidence linking Ms Knox to the murder weapon is unreliable

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as the sample was too small and also the fact that the evidence may have been contaminated as Kercher’s bra which was said to have Sollecito’s DNA on it had not been collected as evidence until six weeks after the murder (CNN Staff, 2014). On October 3rd 2011, Ms Knox makes a plea to be acquitted of murdering Kercher, however in 2012 on February 14th, Italian prosecutors lodged an appeal against acquittal (ABC News, 2014). After one year, in March. Italy’s highest court upholds the appeal against the acquittal, and so a retrial of Knox is held in September. Finally in January 2014, a final hearing of the retrial commences, the court is still due to give the verdict however (CNN Staff, 2014).