Amanda Knox, whose murder conviction for Meredith Kercher was overturned in 2015, now thrives as a podcast host, TV producer, bestselling author, standup comedian, and advocate against wrongful convictions. Happy in her marriage to Christopher Robinson and raising their two young children, Knox reflects on her transformative journey. She controversially befriended Giuliano Mignini, the prosecutor behind her wrongful conviction, seeking closure and understanding. Despite overcoming her criminal history, Knox grapples with the lingering trauma and public scrutiny surrounding her case, emphasizing the importance of sharing her story to connect with others and highlight issues of justice. Her new book, Free, explores these themes.
Amanda Knox considers herself fortunate. Alongside her former partner Raffaele Sollecito, she had their convictions for the murder of Meredith Kercher annulled for the second and final time in 2015. now she hosts a popular podcast titled Labyrinths, works as a television producer and bestselling author, performs standup comedy, and advocates against miscarriages of justice. She is married to Christopher Robinson, a writer whom she cherishes, and they have two beautiful toddlers. Her life feels enriched and fulfilled. Her latest book is titled Free, but it might as well have been called Still Not Free.
Knox’s quest for liberation has taken her in unexpected directions. The most unexpected was her choice to write to and become friends with Giuliano Mignini, the conspiracy-minded prosecutor who propagated the shocking narrative that Kercher, a 21-year-old Londoner on a study abroad program in Perugia, was murdered in 2007 by Knox, Sollecito, and Rudy Guede after a drug-fueled sexual encounter went awry. This narrative is shocking on its own. Even more astonishing is that Knox, who was just 20 at the time, and Sollecito, 23, had merely been dating for six days, with neither having any prior convictions. Most shocking of all is that DNA evidence found at the crime scene indicated that Guede (who had been arrested the week prior in Milan for breaking into a nursery while armed with a knife) was the perpetrator, with no evidence tying Knox and Sollecito to the crime.
Now 37, Knox acknowledges that her family thinks she’s insane for developing a friendship with Mignini. “They believed I had Stockholm syndrome and that I was in an unhealthy relationship with my abuser. But I was troubled by the question ‘Why?’. Why did this happen to me? If the investigation had been conducted properly, I would be a mere footnote in Meredith’s story.” During a two-hour video call, it’s evident how much her conversations with Mignini have aided her. It also becomes apparent that having her murder conviction overturned wasn’t enough for Knox. She still grapples with the notion that the prosecutor believes she murdered Kercher, her housemate and fellow exchange student. Above all, she longs for Mignini to acknowledge, or even confess, that he was wrong about her.
Knox appears joyful and self-assured, a stark contrast to the last time I encountered her in Seattle in 2014 when she awaited the Italian jury’s verdict during her murder retrial. Back then, she was in a fragile emotional state. Now, she wears an eclectic T-shirt with purple and yellow sleeves and a white alien design. As a teenager who loved soccer and was nicknamed Foxy Knoxy (a moniker her teammates gave her, which later became a means to sexualize and vilify her), her quirkiness was loved by many. However, once arrested, her eccentricities were portrayed as peculiar in media coverage. The tabloids scrutinized every detail for clues – including a loud party she hosted that prompted a neighbor to call the police; doing cartwheels in the police station (unaware that she was a suspect, she was rigid with anxiety); bringing a vibrator to Perugia (a joking gift from friends); smiling in court (at her unseen parents); and having a casual encounter on a train that resulted in herpes. All of these incidents were reported at the time as if they were evidence against her.
I first reached out to Knox in 2009 after interviewing her mother, Edda Mellas. At that point, Knox and Sollecito had spent 20 months in custody while Guede was already serving a 30-year sentence for Kercher’s murder following a fast-track trial conviction. Mellas described her daughter as honestly eccentric and naive, recalling that if she purchased new shoes and sought Knox’s opinion, her daughter would straightforwardly declare them horrid. Knox simply could not help but tell the truth, Mellas said.
However, when Knox was interrogated after Kercher’s death, she did not tell the truth. Under immense pressure, she confessed to her involvement in a murder she knew nothing about. The police interviews were supposed to be recorded, but they were not. She endured 53 hours of interrogation over five days in a language she was only beginning to learn. She asserts that she was struck on the head twice. The police employed a technique designed to elicit confessions known as the Reid technique, which is highly effective; officers create imagined scenarios, assert that other witnesses have contradicted the suspect’s story or revealed their involvement, and cause suspects to believe they were coerced into the crime by someone more senior. Unfortunately, this often results in false confessions. Knox revoked her statement mere hours later. Evidence disproved her confession; the man she accused alongside her – Patrick Lumumba, her boss at the bar where she worked – had a solid alibi. But it was too late; everything had already been set into motion. The prosecutor was unwavering.
The letters Knox sent me were profoundly innocent, characterized by large bubble handwriting and optimistic quotes from Beatles songs: “Here comes the sun! Let it be! Be well, Simon. I’m in your hands, Amanda.” Beside this, she had sketched an outline of her hands. If she were guilty, she would have been a psychopath, and she didn’t present as such to me. Our correspondence continued over the years. Her conviction was overturned in 2011, and she returned to America to start anew. However, in March 2013, Italy’s highest court declared it would annul the acquittals and instigate a retrial.
When I spoke to her in January 2014, it was the last week of the retrial, which had commenced in Italy four months earlier, and to which she did not attend. Despite her attempts to maintain composure, she was distraught and frequently tearful. Ultimately, after 11 and a half hours of jury deliberation, Knox and Sollecito were found guilty for a second time: sentenced to 28 and a half years and 25 years respectively. Knox rejected the idea of returning to Italy, yet the possibility of extradition loomed. After the verdict, she expressed, “It feels like I’ve been diagnosed with cancer.” She reflected on her time in prison when “you could relate to those contemplating suicide due to feeling utterly … trapped.” I worried for her. (In Free, she admits she contemplated suicide in prison.)
Fourteen months later, in March 2015, the murder convictions were again overturned. Knox resumed her life, and our correspondence decreased.
This marks our first conversation in years, and there is much to discuss. She shares about her three-year-old daughter Eureka and 17-month-old son Echo; how her family resides on an island accessible only by ferry from Seattle; and how comfortable she feels in this creative forest community that celebrates uniqueness. I inquire about her mother and stepfather, Chris. She remains positive, revealing that Chris decided to leave his computer career and pursue his ambition by heading to Panama. The family eagerly anticipates his return.
Are Chris and Edda still together? Her tone shifts. Her words slow, indicating her struggle to manage her emotions. “No, they actually divorced this past year. Their relationship really deteriorated during my incarceration, as they were separated for so long. Chris lived in Italy to work, and after being apart for four years, they never learned how to coexist in the same home again. That’s just one of the ripple effects of everything.” Tears begin to fall. “Part of me feels responsible. If I hadn’t gone abroad and this bizarre occurrence hadn’t transpired, perhaps they would still be together.”
The ripple effects are evident in many aspects. Upon her initial return home, she hoped to resume her life. Moreover, her family expected her to do so. However, she found herself struggling. She had once been carefree. Now, at the dinner table, she was tense, anxious, and sullen. “I experienced a lot of pent-up anger without an outlet. My sister mentioned feeling like she was tiptoeing around me. In prison, I felt sorrow, and once I was ‘free,’ yet not truly free, I was filled with fury.”
She felt utterly baffled. “I felt ostracized by the world, like there was no place for me anymore, and I was resentful about that.” She understands how unfair this was to her family. They had placed their lives on hold for four years, invested everything emotionally, physically, and financially to support her, while enduring their own kind of PTSD, and this was her way of repaying them.
Did her mother comprehend what she was experiencing? “She sensed something was off but didn’t know how to help. That was frightening for her because while I was imprisoned, the solution was straightforward – prove Amanda’s innocence and get her out. Now, it was, ‘How do I assist my daughter in healing? I don’t understand why Amanda’s angry now or why she continues washing her underwear in the sink when there’s a perfectly good washing machine right there.’” Did you understand your actions at the time? “Not then. I suppose I struggled to navigate the outside world as a free person, finding myself trapped in a different kind of prison.”
It was not merely a metaphorical prison. “I couldn’t open my bedroom window due to paparazzi lurking outside, taking photos of me.” For how long did they remain? “Months.” Even after the paparazzi dwindled, she discovered images of herself in newspapers without knowing where they originated. “I would find out that someone had been following me on my grocery store trips, capturing images of me in sweatpants or handing my boyfriend some change to buy coffee, and the headlines would read, ‘What is Amanda paying off her boyfriend not to say?’ or ‘Look how unattractive Foxy Knoxy is now.’ For years, I lived in a constant state of paranoia, never knowing if someone was stalking me.”
Knox resumed her university education, yet she was terrified of engaging with others, let alone forming friendships. Some viewed her as a monster, some as a desirable catch, while others saw her merely as a source of cheap amusement. Hence, she surrounded herself with those who had known her before her conviction. She had relationships with two former male friends and got engaged to one. Eventually, she realized he too had objectified her. “My fiancé remarked that he envisioned me as Joan of Arc.” She shivers. “I found it unsettling that people were fantasizing about me instead of acknowledging my true self.” This felt no different from those who wrote to her in prison labeling her a satanic slut or those who proposed marriage.
The media continued to feast on narratives about her. Every action she took was compared to Kercher’s fate. “Any joke I made, especially about my own trauma, was perceived as being at Meredith’s expense. And any positive development in my life was viewed as coming at Meredith’s cost, as our identities are unavoidably intertwined in countless people’s minds.” She perceives them as two sides of the same coin. It could just as easily have been her who died, she asserts, and Kercher who was imprisoned. “Even had I never been wrongfully accused and imprisoned, I would still be in therapy because I returned home one day to find my house burgled and my roommate murdered. That alone would have been the defining trauma of my life.” Tears blotch her face. “I merely happened to be the one who returned to her family and continued living her life. Does that mean I should conceal myself and pretend not to exist as an affront to Meredith’s memory because I continue to exist?”
What many fail to recognize or accept, Knox asserts, is that she and Kercher were friends. Today, she sees Kercher as an inspiration. “Meredith is like a ghost on my shoulder, who fought for her life and lost, urging me to fight for mine.” She pauses, uncomfortably. “I know that not everyone appreciates hearing this. Some believe her identity diminishes next to mine. And I don’t hold it against them; in a way, it is true. She became a footnote in a story where I assumed the central role.” Knox recalls the day she read a New York Post headline that stated “Man Who Killed Amanda Knox’s Roommate Freed on Community Service,” a day that sickened her.
A significant change occurred after the Innocence Project, dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted, invited her to a conference in Portland. The thought of attending a gathering with individuals declared innocent terrified her. After all, she had only recently been reconvicted. “I wasn’t even technically an exoneree. I thought, Jesus Christ, I don’t even belong at this conference.”
However, her mother encouraged her to go. One particularly poignant moment in the book describes how Knox arrived, paralyzed by fear, when two young men approached her. Recognizing her nervousness and reluctance, they said, “You don’t have to explain a thing, little sister. We understand.”
From that moment, she says, she became dedicated to the Innocence Project. “The realization that what I endured was not unique was my first step towards connecting with other human beings and finding purpose.” She had discovered her community. Yet her community was diverse – predominantly male, black, and considerably older than her. Many had spent far longer in prison than she had. That was also the moment she recognized her relative fortune in her misfortune. “I’ll never forget an exoneree from that conference saying, ‘Thank God you got wrongfully convicted, Amanda, because before a little white girl from the suburbs of Seattle was wrongfully convicted, no one believed it was real. I apologize for everything you had to endure, but thank God you did because now it’s undeniable.’ That statement resonated deeply with me.” Since then, she has been advocating against miscarriage of justice, sharing her story, raising awareness of other cases, and now fighting to change the law. “One of my objectives is to engage with the Washington legislature to prohibit police deception during interrogations. Police are permitted to deceive! This practice is alarmingly dangerous; it’s not only coercive – such actions distort people’s understanding of reality. I’m collaborating with the Washington Innocence Project to advocate for a ban on police deception and to ensure all interactions with law enforcement are recorded.”
In 2015, she met Christopher Robinson. He was aware of her involvement in a scandal but refrained from inquiring about it. He promised her he wouldn’t Google her past. Did he really remain uninformed about her history? Knox smiles. “No. He believed it related to someone being pushed out of a window.”
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Netflix produced a film about Knox, prompting tabloids to investigate Robinson. At that point, Robinson realized he could no longer avoid her past. So he went to the other extreme, conducting an extensive research dive, reading everything available about Knox. He confronted the internet trolls, determined to show them that his girlfriend was a good person who had suffered immensely. “I warned him that you can’t convince people online, but he needed to learn that on his own. So, for about three months, he drove himself mad trying, until he finally understood and let it go.”
Robinson restored Knox’s confidence. He helped her recognize she didn’t need to apologize for her existence. However, much like every exoneree I have encountered, she found it difficult to move on from the past. During our interview in Seattle 11 years ago, her self-loathing struck me strongly. She had once regarded herself as strong, but now saw herself as “weak” for having succumbed to intimidating tactics, made a false confession, and implicated the innocent Lumumba, for which she received a slander sentence of three years.
Regardless of how swiftly she retracted her “confession,” it had already been made. Though she has been cleared for a decade, she knows many still question her innocence, or simply believe she is guilty. In recent years, she appears to have been striving to reclaim her self-respect as much as the respect of others by undertaking the difficult and unexpected actions, such as corresponding with Mignini. In Italy, prosecutors maintain involvement in a case from the outset – they are expected to conduct investigations in a manner that is not biased before transitioning to adversarial prosecution once a suspect is charged.
Astonishingly, Mignini, during the investigation into Knox’s case, was also facing his own charges related to the notorious “Monster of Florence” murder case, where he claimed a satanic cult was responsible for a series of eight double murders committed between 1974 and 1985, despite evidence suggesting a lone perpetrator. Mignini faced charges for planting surveillance devices in journalists’ cars and abusing his authority to interrogate reporters. Despite being charged, he was permitted to continue practicing as a prosecutor and was ultimately cleared on appeal after being found guilty on four counts of exceeding his official powers.
Mignini, now 74, replied to Knox, and they became regular correspondents. As their relationship developed, it turned into an existential tug-of-war – her pain and grievances on one side, his pride and grandiosity on the other.
Knox found out they shared interests: a love of animals, classical music, and literature. They were both enthusiasts of The Lord of the Rings. Mignini told her he identified with characters from the epic, claiming he was akin to King Théoden, who committed wrongdoings while possessed by a spirit yet ultimately emerged as an upright figure saving his people. He viewed Knox as resembling Éowyn, Théoden’s niece. “I find that thought-provoking as her greatest fear is being trapped. At times, I wonder if he’s implying something or if it’s mere coincidence.”
Has she straightforwardly asked him whether he believes she is innocent? “Yes. And he won’t respond. He states that I am not the person he thought he was prosecuting. Or he’ll say, ‘It’s very likely, and it’s possible that I made some errors.’ His greatest fear is being perceived as someone who pursued an innocent individual. He aims to assert that, at the time, he believed in his prosecution.”
So does he now consider her innocent? It’s more complex, she explains. “He has publicly expressed that he now believes I had nothing to do with the murder, but maintains I was still physically present. This circles back to what I was told in the interrogation room. He tells me, ‘I know you’re not lying. I just think you don’t recall what truly occurred,’ which is incredibly patronizing.”
At times, their correspondence was humorous. He sent Christmas cards signed, “Merry Christmas from your Prosecutor.” While she referred to him as her prosecutor to remind him of their power disparity, he mistook it for an endearing term. Other moments were unsettling (he inquired whether she considered motherhood shortly after she experienced a miscarriage of which he was unaware) and some were even touching. One time, he told her, “I will never forget the grandeur of your spirit.”
Does she now view him as a friend? “That’s a complex question. How do you define friendship? Do I believe he wishes me well? Yes. Is he someone who cares about you? I believe he genuinely cares for me. Does he like me? Certainly, in some respect, I do like him.” A friend is someone you trust, I suggest. “I trust Giuliano to be himself. However, the one thing I can’t trust him with is to publicly declare that he was wrong and that people should ease off and that I’m innocent.”
Does she agree with her parents that it was a foolish idea to connect with Mignini? Not in the least, she asserts – meeting him face-to-face in Italy in 2022, 15 years after Kercher was killed and she was imprisoned, was the most empowering experience she had ever undertaken. Besides desiring his absolution, it seems she has undertaken a version of aversion therapy, I remark. “Yes! Yes!” she responds with enthusiasm. “Anyone who has been hurt wants the person who harmed them to recognize the pain. It’s insufficient for just others to acknowledge your hurt. I entered that room feeling that he held all the power over me. I left feeling like, oh my God, I hold all the power over him.” In what sense? “Because while I wish for him to clear me, I think he’s longing for my forgiveness even more. The moment I felt unstoppable was when I understood that it wasn’t just about what I would gain from him, but what I could give to him.”
In recent years, it appears she has been endeavoring to unravel her past, stitch by stitch. Thus, when in Italy, she visited the home she briefly shared with Kercher. “In that moment, I could mourn for both her and myself, as a part of me also perished in Italy.” She expresses a wish to visit Meredith’s grave someday, though she will only do so with the Kercher family’s approval.
On the day Kercher was slain, Knox and Sollecito had hoped to go truffle hunting in the medieval town of Gubbio. She had never seen a truffle before, let alone tasted one, and was filled with excitement at the prospect. When she was in Perugia, she, her husband, her mother, and Eureka finally went truffle hunting with Sollecito, 15 years later. Like her, she remarks, Sollecito, who served four years in prison for the murder, has faced difficulties adjusting to life after conviction.
Earlier this year, she returned to Italy. Her slander conviction against Lumumba is still in place, and she is currently appealing it. In January, the court of cassation sustained the verdict. Lumumba expressed joy; Knox was heartbroken. She comprehends his delight – for he experienced a devastating impact from it. “He was arrested in the dead of night, terrifying his wife and baby. He was taken to the police station and locked in a cell without explanation. He was imprisoned for two weeks. Even post-release, his belongings were not returned. The pub remained closed for three months due to criminal investigation for no valid reason, resulting in him losing his lease. He had to sell his home in Perugia because he lacked sufficient funds. His life was severely impacted, and he has not received compensation in Italy.” Nevertheless, she insists that it cannot be labeled slander given that it has been established that Knox’s confession was obtained improperly, that she retracted it promptly, and that Lumumba produced an alibi within a day.
Despite the weaknesses she perceives in herself, Knox has proven to be an exceptional fighter. She continues to advocate for her right to live her life and tell her story. After it was announced that Hulu, owned by Disney, was producing an eight-part drama focusing on her miscarriage of justice, with Knox serving as an executive producer, she faced backlash for allegedly profiting from Kercher’s murder. Francesco Maresca, the lawyer for the Kercher family, stated: “On one hand, Amanda claims the trial caused her immense suffering, yet she simultaneously seeks to embrace both fame and profit.” Kercher’s sister, Stephanie, remarked: “Our family has endured so much, and it’s hard to comprehend the purpose of this endeavor.”
Knox is acutely aware of the scrutiny. “People ask, why are you still sharing your story? Why do you continue to elevate your platform? To this, I respond, ‘Because this is my story. It is all I possess, and I regard it as valuable – not solely to myself, but to others as well.’ If I have learned anything from my experiences, it’s that I can connect with people and my story can resonate with others, and it matters. Just as Meredith’s life held significance and her story matters, so does mine.”