“The last week of October [2007], Meredith and her sister Stephanie texted and emailed each other often to talk about her flight home in early November. They were chatting about Giacomo when Meredith suddenly told her sister:
‘By the way, I quarrelled with my American flatmate.’ Meredith mentioned it in passing, and Stephanie didn’t think of asking what the row had been about.”
(Follain; A Death in Italy, pp 48-9)
The case of the murder of Meredith Kercher has been in the news for almost ten years. Most of the attention in the press has been on the two former murder suspects: Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. Even after they beat their murder raps, the news continues as they both turn to sue Italy.
Even with all of the news programs, documentaries, articles and movies, there are still many unanswered questions. As prominent as Knox has made herself in the media she has successfully dodged these questions. This leaves the trial watchers wondering why.
What is spectacular about it is that even with the superfluous amount of information available about the case, Amanda has remained unchallenged on many pertinent issues. One of the questions that the creative writer refuses to elaborate on is:
‘What did you and Meredith fight about?”
John Kercher confirms that all of Meredith’s friends and her family were well aware that Meredith did not get along with Amanda:
“Meredith had expressed irritation to both Arline and I and her friends in Perugia at Knox’s personal habits, because she frequently failed to flush the toilet and had concerns over how she would ‘bring strange men back to the house’”
(John Kercher, Meredith, Chapter 4, The Investigation)
Lastly, Rudy Guede chimes in with his recent interview on Italian television and he confirms that Amanda and Meredith fought. He said he witnessed them fighting over Meredith’s rent money that Amanda had ostensibly stolen.
When Amanda mentions Meredith in her memoir, she shockingly denies it ever happened:
“Months later Meredith’s friends, our roommates, and especially the prosecutor would say that Meredith’s and my relationship had soured — that we had fought over men, my manners, money. This wasn’t true. We never argued about anything. We were just getting to know each other, and I thought we’d developed a comfortable familiarity in a short time — a process that probably moved faster because everything around us was new and unfamiliar. We shared a house, meals, a bathroom. I treated Meredith as my confidante. Meredith treated me with respect and a sense of humor. The only awkward interaction we had was when Meredith gently explained the limitations of Italian plumbing. Her face a little strained with embarrassment, she approached me in my room and said, “Amanda, I’m sorry to bring this up with you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but with our toilets, you really need to use the brush every time.” I was mortified. I knew that Meredith was uncomfortable saying it. I would have been, too. I said, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I will totally check and make sure I leave it clean.” We laughed a little nervously. We didn’t want to hurt each others feelings.”(Amanda Knox, Waiting to be Heard, Chapter 3, September 2007)
Sorry Amanda, it’s three against one, you are officially caught lying (again.) Some may speculate that it was about Knox’s unsanitary toilet habits, the strange men that Knox brought home, stolen rent money and/or jealousy over Meredith’s dating a man they both liked -Giacomo Silenzi.
Keeping in mind that Amanda and Meredith were 20 and 21 years old respectively, they may not have chosen the most mature way of handling things. As a result things probably got heated and resulted in a serious argument. Since the only other witness of this fight is now deceased, only Amanda knows what really happened.
Perhaps Amanda has refused to reveal what she argued with Meredith about because she knows that her ‘best truth‘ won’t be readily accepted by others. Of course, this is due to her numerous falsehoods, the biggest one being her accusing an innocent man of murder. But the fact that Amanda had an altercation with Meredith who would be found a few days later stabbed and sexually assaulted by multiple assailants as established by the Italian Supreme Court, an explanation is in order.
While they were close in age and spoke the same language, their personalities were markedly different. Meredith was serious about her studies, enjoyed socializing but not to excess and she was considerate of her roommates. Knox on the other hand was not part of a study program, had connections to cocaine dealers, got carried away at social functions, and was admittedly sleeping with anyone who crossed her path. One example that illustrates how different they were was when Amanda got kicked out of a club called Velvet after pouring a drink over a DJ’s head. Meredith took the role of parent to Amanda’s childishness and managed to convince the manager to allow Amanda back in. This incident is another one that seems to have been left out of Amanda’s extraordinarily long memoir about her sojourn in Italy.
Perhaps Meredith walked into the bathroom and saw the toilet covered with menstrual blood for the umpteenth time and reminded Knox to stop being such a pig and clean up. Or perhaps Meredith caught Knox flirting with Giacomo, igniting an already tenuous relationship. Amanda may have said something like, “I know that I said you can have him but I’ve changed my mind, I want him now.” Leading to a possible row.
We know that in the last week of October, Raffaele was stuck to Knox like superglue. So possibly their fight included him. Raffaele seemed to have been very attracted to Meredith and this is supported by court documents. Knox and Sollecito were arrested in the early morning hours of November 6, 2007 after Raffaele said he was not with Amanda the night of the murder and that Amanda had asked him to lie for her. Two days later on November 8, 2007, Raffaele and Amanda had their first trial together. What Raffaele said in this trial was such a disaster that he would later invoke his right to no longer testify on his own behalf at all of the subsequent trials.
This is part of what he said (the full trial transcript may be read here in English) Raffaele started off by saying,
He then described their one week affair in some detail and regarding the last time he saw Meredith (whom he barely knew) he said,
Now how would Raffaele, who only briefly crossed paths with Meredith on November 1, 2007, Meredith’s last day on earth, know that she was wearing her boyfriends jeans? Also why would he feel the need to mention this to a judge along with the fact that her boyfriend was in London? Finally, why was he so upset with Amanda that he never wanted to see Amanda again?
From all accounts, Meredith had not entered the kitchen where Amanda and Raffaele were symbiotically attached to announce, “I’m wearing my boyfriends jeans! And he’s in London!” No, she had not done that. In fact, by their own accounts Meredith rushed out of there. She simply said, “bye” and left. Or did she?
How did Raffaele know she was wearing her boyfriends jeans? Answer, he must have been studying Meredith, up and down, taking in her outfit and inquired about it. Raffaele may have slurred something like, “Those are nice looking pants, where did you get them?” Now anyone who has been in their early 20’s and in a relationship knows that one girl’s boyfriend checking out the attire of another attractive female and asking about it is rarely innocent.
Raffaele had recently dashed into bed with one English-speaking flatmate, perhaps he felt he could have the same luck with the other. In addition, Amanda was not known for being easygoing or passive in her social interactions, so this must have created some jealousy or jealous rage in her. Perhaps it was something along the lines as Amanda herself had written in her own short stories: “Feelings that left me hollow in my chest like my insides had been poured out of my mouth . . . hard and strange, almost like a wounded animal, which had been clawing at your insides, had finally found its way out, and the empty feeling of the space it had left bubbled up inside, and then disintegrated.”
It is feasible that Raffaele flirted with Meredith, probably in Italian as he spoke little English at the time. Meredith’s Italian was much more advanced than Amanda who was still learning the basics while Meredith absorbed university courses in Italian daily. What very well could have transpired was a back-and-forth rapid fire dialogue between Raffaele and Meredith in fluency which flew over Amanda’s head.
So now not only could Raffaele have been hitting on Meredith but ostensibly it in a way that excluded Amanda. This would have been double reason for inciting rage in Amanda since that would make Meredith more desirable physically and mentally to her new rich boy-toy that Amanda no doubt wanted to show off to her roommates.
Knox being left out of the loop due to a language barrier was probably viewed as an attack to Amanda. Why? Because we know that Amanda used foreign languages as a weapon to exclude others. Amanda’s difficult family life is well-publicized. “Her sister Deanna had started Russian before Meredith’s death, and Amanda wanted them to have a language they could talk together ‘that no one else would understand’.” (Follain; A Death in Italy, Chpt 36) More than likely, Amanda wanted to exclude her step-family members from their discourse.
This November 1st meeting where Raffaele admired Meredith’s jeans so much was after the quarrel between Amanda and Meredith. We know in detail what Meredith did her last day alive and we also know that Meredith ignored Amanda’s multiple texts on October 31st. So the argument probably happened between October 28th to the 30th. 
We know that the fallout of their fight resulted in Meredith and Amanda spending Halloween apart and only meeting briefly on November 1st. However, we cannot be certain what caused the fight. Perhaps it was all of the strange men that Amanda brought home to sleep with and who would wake up the next morning and try to put their arms around Meredith as Spyros had done earlier. Raffaele probably seemed like no more than the latest notch on Amanda’s bedpost. Meredith might have joked to Raffaele that his expiration date was about to expire soon as Amanda generally moved on quickly to her next inamorato.
In the end, like Flight MH370, the truth has been swallowed up into an ocean of lies, omissions, and obfuscations courtesy of Amanda Knox and her public relations firm. However, even though we may never learn the exact details from Amanda, we know what happened. We also know Amanda lies about it. Every time Amanda Knox says, “Meredith Kercher was my friend,” we know she is lying (again.)
True Crimes Podcast 
Excellent observations, Liz. Of course something major happened at the end of October for Meredith was a kind girl and would not have excluded that woman from her Halloween group of friends unless she was seething about something, and of course, the convicted criminal’s diary pages for the end of October were ripped out. Speaks volumes.
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