EDITOR’S NOTE: A year and nine months after the following article was published, Amanda Knox was acquitted of the murder and released from prison. —October 3, 2011
Italian prosecutors believe a drug-fueled sex game preceded the murder of Meredith Kercher. Though Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were convicted last week of the crime, the prosecution could not prove a motive, saying: “We live in an age of violence with no motive. We don’t know what sparks these things.” What did spark it? This speculative fiction is based on the prosecutor’s time line in the Knox and Sollecito trial. The gaps in the time line are filled in with fictional events. The sources of certain details are noted in the margins. All of the dialogue is invented. (A third person, Rudy Guede, was also convicted of participating in the murder last year.)
Even on this leafy, scenic, romantic hill, whose stairs lead up to
the Via della Pergola, needles are all over the place.1 The junkies will
use any amount of cover from the main streets and plazas to plunge hard
drugs into their veins. Some of the needles on the ground are
fresh—blood on their tips. Others are old and caked with mud.
Because last night was Halloween, there are more fresh needles than
usual.
At 4:00 p.m.,2 as the air begins to go from cool to cold, Meredith
Kercher, a British student from Leeds University, is walking along
Pergola. She is 21, with long hair, dark eyes, and slightly brown skin
(a consequence of the Indian side of her family). She has just left the
cottage, her new home, and is heading to a friend’s place to hang out
with her countrywomen. Unbeknownst to her, she will be dead in a few
hours, in her own bed, her head on a pillow saturated with her own
blood. The countryside is utterly enchanting, and all around her is the
smell of the ancient stones and the lusty sounds of Italian. She can
also hear an American sound—the dribbling of a basketball, the
patter of sneakers, the racket of the rim from a failed shot.
A few minutes later,3 Amanda Knox and her boyfriend of two weeks,
Raffaele Sollecito, emerge from the cottage—behind them, the
hills of Umbria. Knox, a 20-year-old American, is Kercher’s roommate.
Both moved into the cottage at the beginning of the semester (the end
of August); both attend the Universita per Stranieri (the University
for Foreigners). The other two roommates are Italian and not home.
After three months of living together, Knox and Kercher are not getting
along4. Knox is a bit messy, likes to play her guitar with no warning,
and brings all sorts of men home. Kercher keeps a cleaner house and is
more conservative with5 men, though she, too, has a new boyfriend.
Sollecito, who became Knox’s boyfriend soon after they met, is 23,
grew up in Bari (the center of the prosperous Puglia region), collects
knives,6 and is about to complete a degree in computer science.
Sollecito’s mother died not too long ago, and his father, a urologist,
remarried not too long ago. Life must go on.
At 4:05 p.m., Sollecito and Knox leave the gate of the cottage and
walk to his apartment on Via Garibaldi. Two hours later, enough time to
thoroughly fuck (all new lovers fuck like crazy), Knox leaves
Sollecito’s house.7 She has to work tonight. She has a job at the bar Le
Chic. As she walks to her job, her lover is at his apartment preparing
to watch the film Amelie8—it’s going to be a slow and
uneventful evening for him. But then a fateful text arrives on Knox’s
phone. The text is from the owner of Le Chic, Patrick Lumumba, a
Congolese reggae singer who opened his bar—with 70,000 euros,
part of the money coming from a loan, another part from
savings—two weeks before Knox’s semester started. The text9 informs Knox that Le Chic does not need her tonight. Lately, Le Chic
has needed her less and less. To make matters worse, Lumumba is
planning to demote her from waitressing to handing out flyers. Even
worse than that, Lumumba has said he may be hiring Kercher to replace
her. Knox decides to return to Sollecito’s apartment.
On her way back, Knox runs into Rudy Guede.10 He is eating a spicy
kebab at Il Cedro, which is up the road from the University for
Foreigners. Guede loves to speak the little English he has mastered and
usually prefers American foods, like hot dogs and hamburgers. His goal
in life is to be a black American. But he has a connection with Ali,
the Lebanese owner of the kebab shop, who spends a part of the year in
Guede’s home country, the Ivory Coast. They talk about friends and
family there.
“Hey, Amanda, how you living?” asks Guede, who came to Italy when
was 5, was abandoned by his father when he was 16, tried to become a
professional basketball player in the Italian league when he was 18,
and is now a petty drug dealer11 and a notoriously aggressive
womanizer.
“I’m heading to my boyfriend’s,” says Knox.
“Boyfriend? Already? And it’s not me?” Anyone who has visited
Guede’s Facebook page knows that he has a very high estimation of his
appearance. Indeed, he thinks he is as handsome as his number one hero,
Kobe Bryant—a professional basketball player accused of rape in
2003. “You seen Meredith? What’s she doing?” Guede asks12—he met
Kercher for the first time a few days ago while visiting one of Knox
and Kercher’s Italian roommates in the cottage; the second time he saw
her was last night, at a Halloween party. Kercher was dressed as a
vampire.
Knox grins and says, “You like her?”
Guede shrugs and changes the subject. “You need anything?” he says.
A thin gold chain is around his neck. “Your boyfriend need
anything?”
Knox sees her night opening up, how nice it would be to spend it
smoking hash with her boyfriend.13 She wonders if he has any cash.
Knox continues her walk to Sollecito’s apartment, where Sollecito is
on the phone with his father. When Knox shows up, Sollecito ends the
call and kisses his all-American girlfriend, and she says, “Just saw
Rudy.” They agree they’re going to enjoy their night, spend it in bed,
smoke some hash first. “He’s just down the road,” she says. Because of
the illegal nature of their business, and because they don’t want to
answer their phones stoned, and because when they have sex again,
Sollecito doesn’t want his dad to call in the middle of it (his father
never stops calling until a phone is answered), Sollecito and Knox turn
off their phones14 and leave the apartment.
At 9 p.m., Kercher has returned from dinner and is back at the cottage. She leaves the kitchen,
passes a window (most of Umbria, through the window, is dark), enters
her room, gets into the bed, and begins reading lecture notes. She has
a few hours of life left.
At 8:05 p.m., Sollecito and Knox find Guede at the basketball court
near the Piazza Grimana.15 He is shooting in the dark and repeatedly
missing the basket—clearly loitering, looking for students to
sell to. Sollecito approaches Guede and asks how much; Guede names a
price. Sollecito, short on cash, turns to Amanda, who is also short on
cash. Knox asks Guede if he will at least smoke them out. Guede cannot
say no to a pretty lady.
Kercher is home when Knox, Sollecito, and Guede arrive. They stand
outside for a while, waiting for an opportunity to get stoned, but they
are too visible and the street is too busy. 16 When a car breaks down in
front of the cottage, Knox invites Sollecito and Guede inside to smoke
up.17 Sollecito asks if it’s okay to smoke inside, because he knows Knox
and Kercher have been going at it over Knox’s messiness.
“Mez18 can go fuck herself,” Knox says with unexpected bitterness,
loud enough to be heard.19
While they are in the kitchen, cutting mushrooms20 with a knife
Sollecito brought to the cottage a few days ago to prepare a meal to
impress his American girlfriend, Guede sees a purse on the table. He
opens it and finds 200 euros inside. He quickly pockets the money as
Sollecito exits the kitchen and hands him the joint.
“What are you doing?” Kercher says a few minutes later, emerging
from her bedroom.
“We’re smoking hash, Mez,” Knox says, lighting up.
“It’s good to see you again,” says Guede.
Kercher turns, sees Guede, and then her purse—it’s open. She
looks inside. “I had 200 euros21 right here,” Kercher says. Silence.
“It’s my rent money. It was right here.” She looks at Guede, who is
known to live on the edges of crime. “Did you see it?” He grins and
takes a big drag. “Do you have it?” she asks.
Knox exhales a cloud of hash smoke from her lungs and says, “God,
Meredith, you’re such a bitch.”
“You think I took it because I’m black?” says Guede. “You think I
took it ’cause I’m black!22 You think I took it ’cause I’m black!”
“Jesus, Meredith,” Knox says.
“Look, it was there a minute ago,” says Kercher, as a cloud of smoke
passes her face. “And I don’t want you to smoke hash in my place.”
Knox explains knowingly that in Seattle, college students smoke
grass indoors all the time, and besides, there are too many people
passing by to do it outside. She adds, “You are a bitch.
And a prude. I’ve always wanted to tell you that. From the day
I first met you, a prude.”23
“You lost it last night,” Guede says to Kercher. Adding, “That was
wild times. And you looked hot.” He had been at the same Halloween
party.
“I am not a prude, Amanda,” Kercher says.
“Yes, you are! Yes, you are!” Knox says, bursting into childish
laughter.
“I am not.”
“Well, it’s nice to see you again, Meredith,” Guede says.
“Hash?”
“Have you heard how she talks—a fucking prude,” Knox says.
“Will you stop saying that,” Kercher says.
Sollecito says, “Whatever, Meredith, prove you aren’t
a prude.”
“I don’t think she’s ever done it with a black guy,” Knox tells
Sollecito, and then says, “You’ve never done it with a black guy, have
you, Mez? Have you ever even had an orgasm?” Knox laughs.
“Have you, Meredith?” Guede asks, standing from the couch.
“I want you out of my house,” Kercher demands. “And I’m calling the
police about the money.”
“You ever done it with a black guy?” Guede asks, touching Kercher’s
arm. “You know about black guys?”
“Get your hand off me!” Kercher says.
“I knew it!” Knox says, squealing, a long stream of hash smoke
coming out of her mouth.
Guede grins and touches Kercher’s ass.
“They say he’s a maniac in the sack,” Sollecito says, winking at
Guede with comic admiration.
“Get your hands off me!” Kercher says with some worry.
“Mez, I thought you said you weren’t a prude,” Knox says, grabbing
for Sollecito’s crotch and kissing him.
“First thing you gotta do is relax,” Guede says, sliding his hand
down the front of Kercher’s pants. A stunned Kercher tells him to get
the fuck out. Knox picks up Sollecito’s knife from the kitchen sink.
It’s huge and dangerous, and Knox waves it around in front of Kercher’s
face.
“Don’t make us force you to enjoy it, little Miss Mez,”
Knox says. “God, Raffaele, this knife is insane.”
“Take off your bra,” says Sollecito. “Or I could cut it off? Think I
should cut it off, Amanda?” He picks up a smaller knife.24 At this point,
Guede has gotten his hand all the way down Kercher’s pants.
“Do you need me to show you how to fuck, Mez? Have you ever been
shown how to fuck? I’ve been showing Raffaele.” Kercher struggles and
kicks, Guede holding her hands behind her back, and then she
screams—a loud, bloodcurdling scream escapes the cottage.25 It is
heard by a woman across the street. Kercher is threatening to bust them
for drugs, for stealing from her, for—
Sollecito, Knox, and Guede cover Kercher’s mouth and push her into
the bedroom. Her attackers begin to pull off her clothes. She struggles
and begs to be left alone. She is violently pushed to the floor and her
head hits the bottom of a cupboard.26 While on the ground, Sollecito
attempts to unclasp her bra. It won’t give, so he uses his knife to
slice it open.27 She is on all fours and half naked. Guede inserts his
hand into her vagina.
“There, you enjoying that, you little shit?” screams Knox. “You
think I don’t know about Patrick hiring you? You think you’re so
beautiful! Look at you now.” Knox laughs weirdly. This is the heart of
darkness. There is no going back to the light. A feeling of raw power
has overwhelmed their senses. All that is left is the escalation of the
violence. Knox’s blade slashes Kercher’s right hand—first blood
is drawn. 28 Sollecito holds the knife to her neck to get her to stop
flailing and ends up stabbing her in the neck. She cries in pain but
the wound is not deadly. Despite the injury, Kercher continues to
struggle—she can see the door, she wants to stand, reach it, and
flee from the cottage.
“Fuck,” Sollecito says to Kercher. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
To silence her crying, and possibly to impress her boyfriend, who at
this moment of panic looks like a radiant villain and not the
ever-so-lovable Harry Potter, Knox delivers the fatal blow to the
throat. Kercher collapses on the floor of her bedroom and begins her
departure from life.
Eventually, the attackers realize they are watching Kercher die.
They do not call an ambulance because they would be in deep trouble
with the law if she were to survive. They already passed the point of
no return. (Knox and Sollecito don’t have a history with the law.) The
blood keeps flowing from Kercher’s wound. There is blood everywhere.
Guede’s stomach suddenly turns. He rushes out of the room, enters the
bathroom, and takes an explosive shit.29
A sober Knox and Sollecito take Kercher’s mobile phones and leave
the cottage. Guede, who is in the bathroom, grabs a number of towels,
reenters Kercher’s room, and attempts to stop the blood that’s still
flowing from her wound. The blood will not stop. The human body has so
much blood. Blood is everywhere. Guede places a pillow under Meredith’s
head and leaves the bedroom.
After dumping Kercher’s mobile phones in a garden30 along Via
Sperandio and spending several hours at Sollecito’s apartment, Knox and
Sollecito return to the cottage to clean up the crime scene. They have
now completely come to their senses—they do not in fact live in
the jungle but in a human society. The police will eventually arrive,
investigate the death, and begin to look for the killers. This is how
things are done in human societies. The two attempt to clean the rooms,
to remove footprints, and to make the crime look like a burglary by
breaking the window that faces the sleeping city of Perugia.31 After Knox
puts some spoiled clothes in the washing machine, she walks into
Kercher’s room. Sollecito is staring at the corpse. Knox walks by him,
covers the corpse with a feather quilt, stands and looks at her Italian
boyfriend. He has a blank expression on his face. “It’s really
okay—we didn’t do this. Everyone will understand. We didn’t do
this.” 
1.When Charles Mudede visited Perugia in January 2007, he noticed used needles everywhere.
2. 4:00 p.m. is the time Kercher left the cottage, according to prosecutors.
3. Knox and Sollecito left the cottage “a few minutes later,” according to prosecutors.
4. It was widely speculated in the British press that the two women did not get along. Knox’s defense team denied this.
5. It was widely speculated that Kercher and Knox argued about hygiene and dating.
6. Sollecito “collects knives,” his father told the press. London’s Telegraph: “Sollecito had an obsession with knives and swords.”
7. Knox leaves Sollecito’s house at 6:00 p.m., according to the prosecutor’s time line.
8. “Sollecito interacts with his laptop to watch the film Amelie,” according to the prosecutor’s time line.
9. The exchange of texts and the time Knox returned to Sollecito’s is all according to prosecutors.
10. This interaction with Guede is fictional.
11. Daily Mail: Guede was “known as a petty thief and small-time drug dealer.”
12. Guede’s attraction to Kercher is speculative.
13. Knox and Sollecito did end up smoking hash that night, they both admit.
14. At 8:46 p.m., Sollecito turned off his cell phone, according to prosecutors. It’s unclear why. He had been talking to his father earlier.
15. This scene is entirely invented.
16. Sollecito and Knox were seen outside the cottage with “a suspicious attitude,” according to prosecutors.
17. Knox, Sollecito, and Guede entered the cottage at 11:20 p.m., according to prosecutors.
18. Mez was Meredith Kercher’s nickname.
19. All of the motives and dialogue in this scene are invented.
20. According to prosecutors, Kercher ate “a mushroom” in her kitchen earlier. A knife belonging to Sollecito was discovered later by police at his house, possibly with Kercher’s DNA on the tip and Knox’s DNA on the handle, though that is disputed by the defense.
21. Daily Mail: “Detectives know that Meredith withdrew 200 euros to pay her rent money just days before she was murdered.”
22. In court, Guede made much of his race.
23. Jealous sexual tension between Knox and Kercher was heavily speculated on in the British press.
24. The actions described here are purely speculative.
25. A neighbor heard a loud scream. According to the prosecutor’s time line, a scuffle begins at 11:25 p.m.
26. According to prosecutors, Kercher “is taken by the neck, then banged against a cupboard.”
27. Time magazine: Kercher’s bra was “apparently sliced off.”
28. The knife wounds described are real. Prosecutors successfully argued the blows were dealt by Knox and Sollecito. The defense argued that they were inflicted solely by Guede.
29. Guede’s unflushed feces was found in the toilet.
30. Kercher’s cell phones were found in a garden, but it’s unknown how they got there.
31. According to the prosecution, “in the depth of the night the two… will return to the scene of the crime to try and clean up some footprints and to break the windowpane of a room in Via della Pergola with the aim of simulating a robbery ending in murder.”
This article has been updated since its original publication.
UPDATE: On October 3, 2011, Knox was acquitted of murder and released from prison.
This is as bad as the European media. Why did the Stranger print this?
Is this what you jack off to at night, Charles?
You know the irony is, if Muded was ever suspected for murder in a “sex crime” prosecutors could just look at his writings and his fondness for young girls, and they could probably convict him on character evidence alone.
Just sayin’. Mudede definitely sounds attracted to much younger girls, and I seriously doubt any women are attracted to him.
@3) in my defense. i do not like “young girls”. i really don’t.
also, by your standard, if a sex crime involving a horse were to happen, my writings and films would also make me guilty.
I never said you WOULD be guilty. But ya, if I was a prosecutor, I could easily make a case against you as a sex crazed maniac with a lust for young girls and animals. I’m not saying that is the case, but one could easily make it.
That’s why character evidence is irrelevant btw. Most people can be made to look like perverted sex freaks even if you dug into their past enough.
The only question should be, did she do it or didn’t she?
Would it be “fair” if you were on trial and people brought in all your irrelevant stories and sexual escapades?
I’m saying this as someone who used to like your writing. Your story about Pioneer square was moving.
But your writing about this case just makes you look at you as some faux wannabe intellectual with a lust for young girls. Sorry, that’s how you come off.
i can’t believe that this man is a professor.
this is the first time i’ve thought you were truly irresponsible and cruel, charles. i’m dissappointed and hate that i’m starting to agree with @2’s ilk.
unless you meant to show the absurdity of the prosecution using irony. in which case it’s not helping the 206 or our imprisoned daughter.
@1 I really want to know, too. This just seems so exploitative. And creepy, considering Mudede has come across as pretty much obsessed with this story, and this girl, since the news broke. Icky.
This is Mudede trying to be Capote. Pitiful attempt.
Can Savage please get this guy off the writing staff? Honestly, he is the most self-satisfied psuedo-intellectual every to plague the pages of the Stranger, or any newspaper whatsoever.
When he’s not repeating himself (comparing the Enumclaw bestiality case w/ Knox on several posts), then he’s name dropping (any “edgy” or “radical” French autor). Like the horse in Enumclaw, and deconstruction, Mudede is a one trick pony. (And rimshot!)
In summary: Mudede fluffs Derrida. He’s a hack and a mediocre one at that. The evidence speaks for itself: “smell of the ancient stones and the lusty sounds of Italian,” he writes.
Were this but irony. I rest my case.
PS: If Mudede were as radical as he pretends to be, why does he seem to have no relation with his home country, the poor, troubled and formerly-colonized Zimbabwe?
I don’t think so. Nice try though. I’m baffled by this case, honestly. After reading pro-Amanda sites and anti-Amanda sites I am left with no idea whether she was involved in the murder itself or not. Evidence seems to show she helped cover up the murder at the very least. But you don’t conspire to have someone you know raped and then stab them in the throat because you smoked some hash and they are an annoying and prudish roommate. Come on! Hash makes you mellow, and teasing a prudish roommate is even far removed from attacking and killing her in cold blood. There ARE women who get off on their significant others being violent rapists and/or killers (Karla Homolka comes to mind)…that’s all I can think of (but it wouldn’t explain Rudy’s involvement, just Raffaele’s). It’s really perplexing. All the people who’ve come down firmly on one side or the other must be seriously projecting. This is a really weird case with good evidence against Amanda/Raffaele but no plausible motive.
Charles Mudede is Performance Art is Charles Mudede
Sweet fucking Christ, is the editorial board at The Stranger on a steady diet of cough syrup or what?
Ugh. I couldn’t even finish reading this crap.
Maybe this is some sort of feeble attempt by the stranger to be balanced in that sort of smug hippie way that only they can pull off. Madison’s article is much better and that is because it is not the cheap speculative drivel spewed above. Her article is heart-felt and readable unlike Mr. Mudede’s cheap intellectual automaton writing displayed here.
This article does all parties (the involved and the spectators) no service.
charles yer a great writer…but this is a mess !!!
wow this is some of the worst junk i have ever read, I’ve lost a lot of respect for this “newspaper”………
It doesn’t matter what I think about Amanda Kxox, this is still a pornographic piece of trash. Anyone that could write this must have some pretty perverted fantasies…none of this sounds realistic. The next time there is a rape/murder of a young woman in the neighborhood, I would suggest investigating this author.
@18
You make a strong case. Mudede essentially dimwittingly shows us how dumb the prosecution’s theory is.
I mean shit, didn’t the prosecutor think the boyfriend was crazy because he read Japanese Manga comics or nothing? What if he saw THIS shit. Mudede’s lucky he didn’t get arrested in Perugia himself.
This is disgusting. As a journalist, you have a great deal of power over public opinion, as well as control over which facts and bias will leave an impression on the casual reader. And you’ve used that power to turn the shapeless typecast invented by Mignini into a realistic depiction of someone wild, depraved, crude, bitter and downright mean. Having known her well, nothing about your “dialogue” could be further from the gentle way she thinks, speaks and behaves. How, in good conscience, can you use your craft to solidify a bullshit assassination of character? It’s ridiculous and irresponsible and the farthest thing from journalism that I’ve seen in a long time.
pretty entertaining charles. i enjoy your little experiments.
-t
and i haven’t been following this missing white woman stuff much but as per your character i just don’t see her as being such a Willfull Bitch, esp if there is marijuana involved. not necessarily more passive, but just somehow less bitchy. maybe its just the rhythm- if it flows this fast then the dialog should be more disheveled and disjointed, more layered and confused. or if the dialog stays this way then there is a whole other layer of thought that get skipped over in your short rapid sentences here.
Mr. Mudede:
In the field of journalism (and in life for that matter), there exists a system known as “ethics.” Your article flagrantly disregards many of its basic precepts. Thank you for single-handedly turning this rag from “vacuous” to “offensive.”
Consider my readership revoked.
Funny, Charles: “He is shooting in the dark and repeatedly missing the basket….”
In all reality, this depiction of what might have transpired on the way to Amanda Knox’s participation in the murder of Meridith Kercher is far more sensible than to present the words of a friend and character witness who knows no more of the details than what was shared in court.
Most of the lesser-thans who have responded ‘pro-Amanda’ need to get it through their collective heads that American citizens living abroad do NOT have the rights which Americans on U.S. soil take for granted.
Of course the trial, as presented in Italy, would not have resulted in conviction in a U.S. court of law. Guess what: it doesn’t have to!
Amanda Knox has been indignant from the very beginning, and she has mysteriously changed her story time after time after time.
The only people on this earth who have time and the attention span to make up that many conflicting lies/stories, are those trying to conceal the truth for some reason.
Indeed it wasn’t air-tight evidence that condemned Amanda Knox to prison. Instead it was her own actions since the murder which sent her up the river for 26 years.
Now I’ll agree – Amanda Knox is hot stuff – I’d do her in a heartbeat now. Unfortunately for her, “beauty” is anything but a “get out of jail free” card.
Amanda and her friends could have gotten away with this murder in many other countries, which have a more modern criminal justice system. Unfortunately she selected a country said to have one of the least-evolved criminal justice systems in Europe.
Amanda Knox opted to go and live in Italy, and her parents effectively allowed this, so they have some blame in their own evolution this way too. I know she is an adult, who supposedly made her own decisions, but her family could have inspired her to stay in a climate more safe for HER had they had enough sense to do so.
By now it barely matters whether Amanda Knox actually killed Meredith Kercher. She is being condemned for her actions surrounding the events which led to someone having done so.
People, you do not live in Italy, and Italian law is all that matters in this case!!! Get it through your heads.
This took a lot of balls. Is there evidence to back up that Meredith was on all fours, or that a hand was inserted into her vagina? or is that also fiction?
I hope you get caught up in some lengthy trial someday and they use all your shit reporting and filmmaking as evidence against you.
@27, from the prosecuter’s (Mignini time line, presented in court on Nov 21:
“23:40 – Meredith is on her knees, threatened by Amanda with the knife while Rudy holds her with one hand and with the other hand carries out an assault on her vagina. There is first knife blow on her face, then straight away another. However these blows are not effective. The three become more violent. With the smaller knife, Sollecito strikes a blow: the blade penetrates 4 centimetres into the neck. There is a harrowing cry , which some witnesses will talk about. Amanda decides to silence her, still according to the video brought to court by the prosecutors, and strikes a blow to the throat with the kitchen knife: it will be the fatal wound. Meredith collapses on the floor.”http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
@22, there is this:
“When Jean correctly points out the error in the article about phone records (Guede doesn’t have a phone),
Libby replies:
It is true, but not by direct communication between them. The phone records show that she wasn’t at Raffaele’s when she received Lumumba’s text, as she claimed, but instead the tower “pings” show that she was in the same street where Rudy said he was, buying his kebab before the murder.
8:18 Lumumba’s text to Amanda
8:35 Amanda’s reply to Lumumba
8:40-5 Joanna Poppovich sees Amanda at Raffaele’s flat
8:47 Amanda switches off phone for a quiet night
The towers by which phones connect cannot give precise locations as the calls can shift between close towers. Thus the problem in determining where Meredith’s phone was when being used by the killer at 10:00 & 10:13.
Always worth checking facts whether you’re a journalist or a commenter.”Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinio…
@22, i got this from The Justice of Meredith Kercher site/people:
“Mignini’s timeline is probably as close as anyone is going to get to the truth about what happened that night.
I believe Diya Lumumba’s text message was the catalyst for the terrible events that happened that night. He had offered Meredith work at Le Chic and had demoted Knox to handing out flyers. Knox probably felt that she had lost her job to Meredith.
Knox and Sollecito turned off their mobile phones almost immediately after Knox had replied to him. I think they took the double DNA knife from Sollecito’s kitchen with the intention of harming or humiliating Meredith.”
Are all these Amanda supporters seriously getting this worked up about a work of fiction?
Here’s a handy tip for all you questioning Charles’s morals – fiction is not real. No seriously. That’s why it’s called fiction.
You might want to think on that one for a moment or two.
Or, you know, screech some more.
Charles Mudede does not like “young girls”. He really doesn’t.
He just reads Lolita at least three times a year for it’s compelling narrative. Honest.
Charles Mudede does not like “young girls”. He really doesn’t.
He just reads Lolita at least three times a year for it’s compelling narrative. Honest.
I save myself a lot of time and annoyance by checking bylines in the Stranger/Slog first before reading.
Mudede is the most delusionally self-important, flatulent, and non-sequitorial writer I’ve ever stumbled across in regular publication. It continues to amaze me that the Stranger continues to allow him to drag their paper down.
His masturbatory obsession with Amanda Knox and her “guilt”, unproven by any rational standard, is simply and utterly creepy.
But I’m not here just to flame Mudede, easy as that may be, but to advise other readers of the Stranger to do what I do. Check the byline, if it says ‘Charles Mudede’, just skip to the next page. You’ll enjoy the reading experience more and have a fresher, cleaner, better brain as a result.
Of course sometimes I forget, being a habitual reader, but the pompous, flaccid writing style usually clues me in after a couple of paragraphs and I break away without bothering to finish.
I’m sad for Charles, that this is how he chooses to inflict himself upon the world, but I’m sadder still for those of who have to experience it without advance warning. I hope someday the Stranger comes to its senses and gives him a nice delivery job, or promotes him to Vice President in Charge of Nothing Important That Involves Writing.
Until that day, ‘Friends don’t let friends read Mudede’.
@32 go read the Times, or the Weekly, or some other blog. You obviously don’t know where he’s coming from and think everything should simmer down to your own bland tastes. Charles is a spec of character and vision on an otherwise selfsame typical ho hum style of journalism.
And @24, what is unethical about this? What is unethical about literature, esp in the context of news? You softies are reading the wrong papers for your delicate sensibilities. Don’t tell the rest of us we have to conform to your boring levels of offense.
I can’t believe The Stranger is indulging this crap. I’ve regarded Charles with mere bemusement until now, but this is absolutely discusting. He need to get some counseling to try and figure out why the murder of this young girl gets him going so much. It is written like fan-fiction for murder, and reading Charles’ description of the sexual parts in particular gives me that sinking, nauseated feeling in my stomach.
This is a fascinating read. To all of you haranguing Charles for indulging a bit, take a step back and a deep breath. This is creative, and it serves to shine a light to the stories people created in their own minds, and which they believed enough to convict her. It is all they had, in fact, this story, painted by the prosecution and their imaginations. At any rate it got me to think, and clearly riled up the lot of ya.
i’m not offended by the piece, but after i finished it i felt that it had shown her innocence more than her guilt.
@ 22 “this is certainly a plausible scenario”
i don’t think there’s anything here that shows why three people, without a motive or prior plan, would cross the boundaries that they do, unless they all happen to be sociopaths.
also, have we learned nothing from savage? (or just figured it out on our own). bandying about accusations of being what we like to fantasize about is ridiculous. people get off on things in their heads that they would never want to do (or have happen to them) in real life.
Holy cowballs, CM, you are scarily obsessed. You really are a total creep! Glad I don’t know you!
i’m not offended by the piece, but after i finished it i felt that it had shown her innocence more than her guilt.
@ 22 “this is certainly a plausible scenario”
i don’t think there’s anything here that shows why three people, without a motive or prior plan, would cross the boundaries that they do, unless they all happen to be sociopaths.
also, have we learned nothing from savage? (or just figured it out on our own). bandying about accusations of being what we like to fantasize about is ridiculous. people get off on things in their heads that they would never want to do (or have happen to them) in real life.
Before I read this, I was still wavering between Amanda’s guilt and innocence. I am now nearly certain that she is innocent. This scenario rang so false, so hollow, that it should have been used on the jury. If it has, there likely would have been an acquittal.
Before reading this story, I was still wavering on Amanda: I could not decide if she were guilty or innocent. Now, I believe she is innocent. This story rang so false, so follow, that it should have been read to the jury. If it had, there would likely be an acquittal.
Well this is complete garbage.
PUBLIC LYNCHING. most italians want to see her burn and the case details conform like critical mass. thats how it worked with poor non-whites early 20th century. the americans most prone to agreeing w/ italians tend to have a self-loathing reverse OJ complex.
This is an excellent ‘true life’ crime story. However one fact remains a mystery in real life; why were Guede’s fingerprints left at the crime scene? Bearing in mind Knox and RS, allegedly, cleaned up after the murder using bleach?
Surely this suggests that Guede returned after the first ‘clean up’, for some reason – perhaps he left some item that he wanted to collect and then left his prints again? Maybe he took the money after the murder from Meredith’s purse in the bedroom?
A further paragraph or two explaining this fingerprint mystery would make a superb story; also they had consumed a lot of alcohol too plus dope/skunk? Thus explaining their violent behaviour more.
Keep up the true life crime writing Charles! Ignore the ‘Angel Knox supporters – they are still in denial!
‘An angel at home, a devil at abroad’!?
I love how Charles (and the motley anti-Knox crew of Catholic sex-phobes and “kill whitey” decolonizers) has to contort the narrative to navigate the concrete evidence of technology. Back in the day, there wouldn’t be cell phone and computer interaction data to serve as impediments to a smooth narrative.
Example: someone watched the film Amelie, in its entirety, on Knox’s boyfriend’s computer just before the killing. Prosecutors admit this. But I’m sorry, have you seen this film? There is simply no way a Seattle hippie chick would go murder her roommate over a job RIGHT AFTER WATCHING AMELIE WITH HER HOT ITALIAN BOYFRIEND! Charles sounds like a D.A.R.E. alarmist in conjecturing that pot would turn them from love-birds into killers. Do you think prosecutors would select this film in their narrative if they didn’t have to run the obstacle-course of modern evidence? Of course not, they’d choose Psycho or something.
For anyone not blinded by anti-drug, anti-sex, or anti-colonial sentiments, Occam’s razor suggests Guede did it.
While I disagree with some of the decisions the author made–I suspect that the confrontation over the stolen E200 probably played a bigger role in the ensuing sexual assault and murder, and Amanda Knox’s personal disagreements with her room-mate played a smaller role–I thought it was an interesting read, an attempt to color in some of the details of the prosecution’s account of the rape and murder.
Also, various people suggested that Amanda Knox couldn’t have killed anyone because hash makes you mellow. Have these people ever done drugs in their life? Dealers put shit in their drugs all the goddamned time, and Guede seems like exactly the sort of sleaze to do it.
The “it was only pot!” argument represents a complete failure of critical thinking.
if she did it……
then here’s why.
she’s a entitled, bored, pretty , middle class american girl
who desperately wanted to be ‘different’ and ‘interesting’.
to have edgy experiences to feed from like ‘real’ authors/artists
her idea of being a ‘rebel’ was vague, pretentious and often forced.
casual sex and smoking pot just weren’t cutting it any more.
a series of random events pushed this need
to the surface within a ridiculously extreme scenario.
she saw a twisted, decadent glamour in it….in the heat of the moment.
it was real…….
less extreme examples of this theory happen every day….all the time.
…….and all human behavior has extremes.
is that so hard to understand?
just as it is easy to understand
that she now she regrets getting her wish.
maybe?
There’s two ways to read this piece. Either Mudede’s a total nut writing Amanda Knox fanfic, or this is a work of parody taken to its most absurd levels. Since Mudede’s whole story is so ridiculous, I think we’re supposed to draw parallels between it and Giuliano Mignini’s crackpot theories. Mudede’s clearly taken Mignini’s assertions to the extreme in order to point out how utterly absurd they are. This is kind of the same way that South Park constructs its social commentary/parody (I’m reminded of the episodes Red Hot Catholic Love and The Jeffersons). Yes, Mudede’s work is tasteless–so is South Park–but he’s trying to provoke us in order to prove a point.
Negrolabianism: Prof. Mudede’s thesis, which views all social interactions in terms of the power relations between black dick and white pussy.
If the point is to demonstrate how absurd Magnini’s theory is, then it would expect for this to be humorous and ironic. All I detect is an earnestness in the forced realism — with footnotes.
This is as exploitative as Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, but in writing the masterwork of Mid-west gothic horror, Capote became very close to the murderers and the people they touched. Something tells me Mudede didn’t build his characters from observation of the principles.
The idea of New Journalism was to import techniques from fiction writing to confront the impossibility of objectivity and offer a more genuine subjectivity. It’s good when it works, but when it fails…
this piece is worthy of fox news. Charles, you would make a great nazi.
Negronaziapedopholabiac alachaholicalisticicalnarcisisitical intellectual nuskulaciphiliac.
For anyone who has ever smoked marijuana, hashish, cannabis, hemp, skunk, bud, weed, call it whatever you want, the idea that this drug could fuel a violent anything is patently absurd. A few hazy details? Yep. A “Reefer Madness” -type murderous binge? Are you fucking kidding? Can anyone cite the number of cases that this (marijuana is responsible idea) been credibly used to help convict someone of murder? This is not from a hemp-gaga poster. The “hash”-fueled idea is wacko, it just belongs in some strange, er, what, prosecutorial fantasy?