Who's the culprit?
The American studentessa?
The nice Italian boy?
Or the immigrante?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/12/europe/journal.php

Story made US news on ABC's Nightline Friday night. They didn't present anything new.

So whodunnit?

I just saw the delayed broadcast of the Nightline piece. Very intriguing! Now I think they all may be guilty.

I've been following this story from the start. I was surprised it hadn't been mentioned!

It all sounds very suspicious. I think the American girl is definitely in the thick but whether she is protecting her boyfriend at the expense of the bar owner, I don't know - seems like he is an easy target to some degree. Could be a case of said wrong thing in hearing of wrong people? It was known the bar owner liked Meredith - I wonder if this is now being used to "frame" him? Ha, just read the report in "The Times" which is saying just this! After all, in the mind of Amanda Knox, who are people going to believe, the pretty, blond American or the immigrant from the Congo?!

I had a real hard time with this because the news can make us believe anything. The day after they had pictures from the Italian's blog showing him with a knife, doing weird things, etc. They also showed him and his girlfriend outside of the house while they were taking away the body and they were kissing and watching. Really strange. I immediately thought that it was the girlfriend. But that is just from what I have seen on the news.

Wonder if she ever reads this forum?

I've been following this story also Alyson since it has been all over the news in the UK. OH said at the very beginning when he seen the American girl that she had a guilty look about her and that she did it (this was before they were even taken in for questioning). There was something on RAI News 24 last night saying that the Italian boyfriend of Amanda Knox had confessed that they did it but nothing was mentioned about the man from the Congo. They do say that there were at least 4 people in the apartment though (stiletto heel prints found in the blood) so they are looking for someone else as well. Amanda Knox had posted on her Facebook that she fantasized about raping another woman so it doesn't look too good for her. Adding to the fact that she constantly changes her story does not imply to me that she is an innocent party. A friend of Meredith also provided a statement that Meredith had complained about the amount of men that Amanda was bringing back to the apartment, must be nice for her parents to hear all this stuff about their daughter on top of a murder charge.

Apparently they are still analysing dna which was found at the scene (hair in Meredith's hands) and fingerprints on the knife of the Italian boyfriend so I think there is a lot to come out of this story still. The man from the Congo must fit in somewhere otherwise they would not have charged him so there must be evidence of his presence at the murder scene. Truly horrific chain of events, like something from a horror movie, poor girl.

I really feel for Meredith's family. I've been following the story through The Times online and they haven't been holding back on the details either. To hear the horrific things that happened to their daughter and that she must have died slowly and in agony... did they really need to print that?! And all before they had even been able to get to Italy to be with her.

I am genuinely beginning to think the bar owner has been set-up - why risk a successful business over a student? He's been here a long time and settled with a family - it just doesn't make sense, especially as his wife is standing by him - most do a runner in this situation unless they have something to hide too. I think he probably met Amanda that night, but whether he saw Meredith or not, I'm not so sure. And so far he is the only one they can't put there - it is only Amanda's "break-down" that put's him there, when she was supposed to be hiding in the kitchen listening to him rape and kill her "friend". Would you really cover your ears and not even call the police? I don't think so!!

Ciao all.. I have been following this story too, as Amanda is from Seattle,, I think I read that Amanda worked at the bar, I think it said like 5 nights a week.. so she had to have known the owner.. And like someone said previously she/Amanda has changed her story a few times, not making her a credible witness. Sad, Sad Sad.. I think the are all in on it.. and the mystery remains.. who is the 4th person?? the DNA of the hair in Meredith's hand will have one of the answers. I too feel for Meredith's parents.. how awful, a situation no parent want to be in..

Sherrie

I too have been following this and was surprised it hadn't been mentioned on here sooner. Seems we were all waiting for someone else to bring it up

Anyway, it is so so sad. Did things get out of control or did someone mean to do it? - but why would anyone ever mean to do such a thing - unless they were out of their mind. Meredith sounds like she got mixed up with the wrong people. The couple - Amanda and her boyfriend sound like 2 very strange characters - going from pictures and comments I've seen from their websites.

Like Cristina I wonder if they read expats.

I suppose it's one of those topics that it feels hard to bring up, even though we have all been following the story. One friend here hadn't even heard the story as she hadn't seen the news! She soon caught up!

They say they were regular cannabis users, but I always thought cannabis made you mellow (I really wouldn't know!) not a psycho. It makes you wonder what else they were using to do these things.

They have also issued the name of the person they want to interview to see if they are this 4th person. Isn't it a North African musician or something? Again the only connection is Amanda - it sounds like this girl has left home and just gone completely dotty!

I read La Repubblica last night and it had all these crazy quotes from Sollecito like (I paraphrase): "I've been scared of blood since I was a little kid" and "I was overweight when I was a kid and kids used to call me names. So dating Amanda was a really amazing thing for me and I'd do anything for her." Apparently he's meant to go to Bocconi for a "Master" next year.

It also said that police had found DNA of a fourth person in the apartment probably a person who sold drugs and "probably a foreigner". I wonder how they know that.

quote:

They say they were regular cannabis users, but I always thought cannabis made you mellow (I really wouldn't know!) not a psycho.

I think if you are really dependent on it - for example smoking various times each day it can have quite an effect.

I was comparing this to the Portuguese case of missing Madeline. In Portugal the Police can't say anything about a case and neither can suspects and so the media knows pretty much nothing, instead here every detail seems to be coming out. Apparently there was even a picture of the body in one Italian paper.

It must be so hard for the family of Meredith hearing all these details.

quote:

They say they were regular cannabis users, but I always thought cannabis made you mellow (I really wouldn't know!) not a psycho. It makes you wonder what else they were using to do these things.

Ever seen Reefer Madness?

AFAIK, not a user but an observer, prolonged use causes memory problems. What has happened to many is using adulterated product which can have all kinds of problematic effects. I've had friends take themselves to the police because they didn't know exactly what they'd taken, but it was really scary.
That said, what's coming out is vastly disturbing to an American mom who is now doubly relieved that her kid hates violence and drugs.
OTH, all the stuff I saw on their Myspace pages looked like normal kid antics to me. I thought you were supposed to be weird and have poor judgment as a kid?
As far as her writing those stories, fiction does require imagining, or fantasizing, if you will, many things you don't actually do. Literature would be either impossibly boring or pretty much written by criminals if writers had to first do all the things they write about, no?
To date they still don't appear to have identified one scrap of dna from Lumumba in the apartment. Four providers of traces and prints, but not his.

I have also followed this story (in the Perugia press). My opinion, for what it is worth, is that Mr Lumumba, the congolese born long term resident of Perugia, is almost certainly completely uninvolved. There are two minuscule pieces of evidence against him: a cellphone claimed to be his was in contact with the cell covering the house where the murder ocurred for a few moments within a couple of hours of the presumed time of the murder, and he deleted a text message sent to (can't remember if it was to Amanda or Meredith) that evening. Tomorrow they think they will be able to retrieve this message. Apart from these issues the only other reason he is being held is that he was accused by Amanda.

I also think that the boyfriend Sollecito(though likely to have been an accomplice after the act) is not likely to have been primarily involved.

The fourth person, a north African man described as a drug dealer) has now been named I believe(name not yet published) and is being actively sought by the police. If he is traced, and his DNA matches some residues left in the murder house, then he is definitely on the cards.

Certainly Amanda, the American girl, is being painted very blackly.

In all honesty I haven't paid close attention to what's been going on, however, the girlfriend keeps me updated. I just wanted to say that I'm not very comfortable with the correlation I see being drawn between marijuana and this murder.

Perhaps the 4th was Osama? Where the hell is he?

Barack has an airtight alibi- he was campaigning in the US that night.

Osama or Obama (sp?)??? You're as bad as I am always mixing the two up.

I have been following this story ever since I read about it on Bleeding Espresso's blog. I'll admit (from the reports that I had read soon after the news was released) that I thought it was Lumumba. The 'facts' at that time made it seem like he was guilty. Allegedly, he had a wife and kid at home, while he was out cheating and something went terribly wrong during this sexual encounter. Now, it looks like he may be innocent and has been framed. There are so many conflicting allegations! As each new story pops up, Knox and her boyfriend are looking more and more suspicious. While searching this morning for updates to this story, I found this. Looks like a copycat. I don't even know what to think about it.

Well, things don't sound too good for the American roommate. The fact that she's changed her story several times, doesn't bode well and makes her seem guilty. They've found the fourth suspect now in Germany. He's saying he was getting ready to turn himself in to clear his name. The question is, why didn't she name him at all?

The mystery deepens...now another arrest, a kid from the Ivory Coast. Repubblica says that the cops interviewed people who saw him and Amanda at the laundromat washing sneakers and other articles of clothing. That explains the police presence at the Corso Garibaldi laundromat a little over a week ago. So now Lumumba does look uninvolved. The story keeps changing, but Amanda and the cherubic ragazzo look like constants, huh?

Perugia certainly is "sconvolta" by all this...it's not supposed to happen there (not "here"--I'm unfortunately back in the States). I guess no one should be surprised, I forgot which Italian newspaper called the city "the Ibiza of the Erasmus programs"--though, I have to say, most of the obvious drunk students I've seen wandering around seem to be Americans. (please, no flames, it's just my observation from walking around late at night)

I've followed this in the news - not uber-closely, but payed attention to the developments - since I first heard about it shortly after the murder.

I've taken a special interest in the whole situation due to its similarity with my situation last year. For those of you who might not know, I studied in Bologna last year, and so I'm pretty familiar with the lifestyle common to study abroad, especially in Italy, which is similar to the situation in all of western Europe. The fact is, this kind of expat experience is unlike any other, and is vastly different from the way most of the members of this community (ExpatsInItaly) live in Italy.

It's commonplace for students to go a little nuts when they're studying abroad; you probably don't know anyone, and no one knows you. You have a chance to re-invent yourself and maybe be a little wilder, a little more interesting than you were before. It's easy to feel like the rules don't apply, you're taking a break from real life, your actions don't have real-word consequences because you're going to go home at the end of the semester/year, etc. People tend to take more risks. Usually that's not a bad thing - it means things like starting conversations with new people when you might have otherwise kept to yourself, having a more active social life, traveling to places you wouldn't have gone before, and making friends with people you might have avoided in the past. But it can also mean taking unwise risks, putting oneself into dangerous situations, etc.

I know a number of girls (fewer guys, but okay, some of them too) who got a lot more... let's call it "adventurous" in their interpersonal relationships, choices in men, and sexual behaviors while they were in Italy. Amanda's reportedly bringing an unusually high number of men back to the apartment is something I saw happen with more than one of my friends, and feeling sexually "liberated" is part of the experience for many study abroaders. Amanda, it seems, may have taken this to an extreme.

The same applies to the use of mind-altering substances. I think the attitude in Italy with regards to substances is, frankly, more open to begin with than it is in the US. Cannabis (in Bologna anyway) is all but ubiquitous among Italian students, and we (the Ameriucans I knew there) felt like the amateurs compared to them. Rarely did I go to someone's house in the evening where a "canna" (joint) was not passed around, although more often than not this was pretty tame hash, nothing that was going to put anybody out of their mind or give you anything but a case of the giggles. I've also been to a birthday party - as the only foreigner - where the celebrant and his guests passed around dinner plates of cocaine. These were not unusual people but average students and recent graduates. Combining that more open environment with foreign students who feel they have license to experiment can result in certain kids losing control. I've seen A students from Ivy-League schools, super-straight types, do multiple shots of absinthe followed by several lines of cocaine (and subsequently fall asleep in dance clubs, strangely), things they simply would never have done in the US. (Cocaine - snorted or smoked in cigarettes - seems to be more prevalent in Italy, more like it was in the late 70s and early 80s in the US, a party drug).

I guess what I'm getting at here is that I can see how taking that study abroad mentality - of letting loose, experimenting a little, taking more risks - combined with a dangerous personality (Amanda's own, the boyfriend's, or that of either of the other two parties implicated) could get taken too far, and lead to an already dangerous situation spiraling entirely out of control.

Clearly this happens very rarely in study abroad circles - almost never - and so a very unique combination of circumstances must have led up to this terrible crime.

I just hope this case doesn't affect the way the average Italian views and treats Americans studying in Italy, who yes, maybe tend to go a little nuts, but can also be the most open, intelligent, and interesting Americans any Italian is likely to meet. After all, only 2-3% of American college students study abroad, and they're generally the most motivated, smartest, most open-minded students on campus. If this led to Americans becoming more isolated from the general Italian population, that would be a real shame, because this one girl and this one situation are obviously not representative of most Americans or their behavior in Italy.