Amanda Knox was a 20-year-old foreign exchange student when she arrested for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Amanda’s suspiciously cold behavior attracted attention immediately. Starting from lying to the postal police that Meredith always locked her door, kissing her boyfriend outside of the murder scene as the Italian police (Carabinieri) were called in to inspect and cordon off the area.
Then at the police station Amanda claimed to know everything and gave people in the waiting area details that only the murder(s) would know. She knew Meredith was killed by her wardrobe and that she had bled to death from knife wounds to her throat.
Amanda’s bizarre and callous behavior set her apart from everyone else immediately. Amanda became agitated when everyone was getting their fingerprints, Amanda kept hitting herself, quite hard in the head. A police officer became concerned by her erratic behavior and testified about it in court.
Later on Amanda would laugh and swing her hips when she was brought back to the crime scene to help the police identify objects in the cottage. Then another day Amanda did splits and cartwheels in the hallway of police headquarters while she waited for her boyfriend.
Amanda and Raffaele were arrested four days after Meredith Kercher’s lifeless body was discovered by authorities. Raffaele had withdrawn his alibi for Amanda and said that she told him to lie for her.
After Amanda was sent to prison, a few days later on November 10th 2007 Amanda and her mother meet for the first time in months when Amanda’s mother, Edda, visits her in prison. They are both informed that their conversation will be recorded by the police.
Below is a video with the mother and daughter who meet for the first time after the daughter’s roommate has been murdered and the police have arrested the daughter as being one of the murderers.
If you had been arrested and sent to prison a few days ago for the murder of your roommate and you were innocent, what would your conversation with your mother sound like? On the flip side, what would you say if you were the mother who just flew thousands of miles to visit your daughter after her roommate was murdered only to discover that your daughter has been arrested? You finally see your daughter for the first time in the prison visiting room, what would you say to your daughter and what your conversation focus on?
Below are some conversations, by various trial watchers, after listening to this conversation:
“Only half way through but it’s a jolly old chat so far isn’t it. Mandy not sure if she can wear a hat etc. And clear mom and lawyers don’t believe her. Mandy changes the subject and Edda keeps returning. What has shocked me so far is not one kind word for Meredith or her family. In fact Edna refers to Meredith’s murder as ‘doing the deed’. Shocking.”
“One thing I’ve noticed about he prison intercepts and diary is that every time she is caught out she says,’that’s bullshit’, instead of properly refuting the allegation. ‘Can’t remember’, indeed.”
“I think the word bullshit is cue for move on to next subject. ”
“Re AK & Edda taped prison conf: Sounds like she is an expert at lying to her mother.”
“Agrees, her mother knows it, when edda brings her back to topic with [8:43] “and there is no way your fingerprints are in the room is there??” she knows AK is guilty”
“and if this is their first convo – how cld edda not ask poxy ‘why do you think this happened to meredith?’how could all of this have happened?” Edda shld be asking I’d think if she were really shocked by it all”
“Certainly not the naive quirky abused innocent”
“Whether bugged or not, no sensible person is going to be indiscreet in that environment. The way Edda rapidly changes the subject before AK says anything rash, proves she knows AK has a big mouth and knows AK probably did it, as charged.”
” yes, the whole conversation seems catered to the police, all about how AK was trying to help police and giving her alibi”
“Edda’s immediate departure from Seattle to join Knox in Perugia was seen as a sign of alarm. I believe Edda knew early on that Knox was sparse with the truth and that things weren’t adding up which prompted her to travel to Italy.”
“I noticed that one of the first questions EM asked Knox was if she had been doing drugs. Odd to say the least.”
“To me Edda does not believe her (although she desperately wants to) and neither do the lawyers. How much emphasis was there on ‘you must tell the truth whatever it is’. As for the drugs, I read a Chris Mellas interview last night and he confirmed he knew Mandy was smoking weed in Seattle.”
“All I can think is damage control when I hear EM in that intercept. I find AK’s reaction to the news of her “fingerprints” found on Meredith’s face suspicious. She does not firmly reject this claim as one would expect. On what occasion would you ever touch a roommate’s face anyway? Seems odd to me. I feel the same way regarding Knox’s alibi. She says “I now remember” and she does not explain why she would think of Patrick, or imaging him at all and give his name to police. Also, EM is not upset or outraged that police hit her daughter. I would have been very upset upon hearing this. I also noticed that EM gives Knox a lot of details about the media coverage, something she has denied in interviews. Back then she said the family were shielding Knox from the media coverage and that Knox had no idea what was going on outside. Another lie.”
“‘I know I wouldn’t do this which is why I am not scared.” [minute 19:15] Interesting wording.”
“Even Edda can’t understand why she ‘spazzed’ out. Even asks ‘so you’re back to your original story’. And didn’t want to report the hitting”
” Not only asked EM if Knox went back to her original story, she said it was a good thing that she did. What I find strange throughout the conversation is that EM does not ask important questions like what RS said and when and why he recanted. Things that usually would leave you puzzled. The whole atmosphere suggests she does not much care what Knox has to say either because it will not contribute to finding the truth, or maybe EM was not interested in finding out.”
“it was all about getting her out of there. Meredith meant nothing.”
“My thoughts exactly. I believe EM would have been ok with Lumumba taking the fall for Knox.”
“At minute 23:30 approximately, Amanda Knox explains that the reason she did not remember what they did after dinner was because she and Raffaele were “just talking” and she could not remember that because IT’S NOT REALLY AN EVENT! That girl has an excuse for everything and I suspect the reason she does not feel one bit embarrassed to offer such kind of foolishness is because it has worked for her before with her mother.”
“Since minute 24:29 the conversation gets really interesting. First they talk briefly about their telephone conversation and 5 seconds later Knox claims to not remember having called her at all. Knox also avoids a clear answer to the question who called the police and when.”
“At around minute 30:30, EM wants to know what Knox said about Patrick to police and Knox says she requested to be shown the message she sent to Lumumba and then she started “seeing” him at the basketball court and in the house, but she offers no explanation why one would assume he committed a crime. She does not mention any police pressure with regards to her imaginations. According to her they were triggered because of the text message. She said at least three times so far that she did not offer Patrick’s name to save herself.”
“M also told ak about the lawyers “well they are Your lawyers…” Like EM wanted to wash her hands of it all + tell ak its all her problem”
“Maybe she wanted to assure her that they would not share any information with the parents so Knox would feel more free to speak.In case she wanted to confess …
“All I know is I better receive a public apology from police after this is over since like you fucked with me and you fucked with my life.” [Minute 33:37] Shortly after her mother tries to prepare her for the alternative in case the police “don’t get it right”.
“That final bit definitely caught my ears. Didn’t she also say ‘and I’ll be alright’ or something similar? I’m shocked at her potty mouth. I would never have spoken in front of my mum like that.”
“The language bothers me as well. Everything is “bullshit” and the police knows “shit”. She also said to her mother she had sex with Raffaelle to explain how she spent her day. A complete lack of tact.”
“Oh, and the f-word, of course. EM probably talks the same way, but unlike her daughter, she remembered the room was bugged!”
“I’ve only read the transcript, so far, and was struck by the same things. In particular, EM urged AK to call the police when she rang circa 12:57 2.11.2007. She asked AK who called the police, wanting to know if AK did as she was told. Her answer, ‘no’ must have spoken volumes to her. I also got that EM didn’t believe AK and had her doubts. After that she caved in and just played along with her.”
” I noticed Amanda Knox “misspoke” and accidentally described herself as a witness to a murder. EM: [whispering] “Why did you have to pick this fucked up country?” [laughter] AK: “You don’t think you’re gonna witness … like … You’re gonna be around a murder in your own house. You know. You don’t think that.” [Minute 41:50] Here is another gem: “I mean, it would be a lot easier if she was like murdered in the basket ball court, where I never am. But, like, I mean, I don’t wanna say that either because my friend was murdered and it would be a lot better if she wasn’t murdered. [Minute 45:35]”
“Unbelievable.”
“My observation is that Amanda Knox over pronounces words whenever she lies (mostly when she is asked about her false accusation and her imaginations). At minute 46:35 her mother asks about Knox cowering in the kitchen. Knox calls it ‘that whole thing that she thought could have happened because she imagined it under a ton of stress’. She ‘imagined’ being at her house like this, but she told the police she thought this was not real. During the entire visit Knox does not manage to clarify what is real and what is not. Sometimes she claims she only wrote down whatever came to her mind because the police insisted and sometimes she claims to have suffered genuine imaginations which she believed to be true at that time. If one listens carefully, when she describes the questioning and her false accusation in detail, she does not blame it directly on police. In fact, she offers no valid reason for her accusation or her admission to have been present at the murder. I was also surprised to hear how often Knox laughed throughout the conversation. If this would have happened to me, I would have sobbed the entire hour. Her idea to write a book about the whole thing was also odd and premature. Her mother was quick to stress that she could narrate her experience but nothing about the murder because *she was not there*. Yes, someone had to point it out to her.”
“I’d like to read the transcript of Knox’s questioning when she allegedly came close to confessing. One of her lawyers at the time – Costa – stopped her.”
“Is weeped a word? I thought the past tense of weep is wept? Knox says she weeped when she found out they can hold her w/o a charge for a year.”
“It’s wept. Amanda Knox’s English is terrible.”
“It defies belief that she’s managed to outwit and fool so many people”
“Everyone listening to that tape can figure out she’s lying. Her mother surely knows. I don’t believe for a second that Edda Mellas believes her to be innocent.”
“Knox was having a jolly good laugh about the prison guard discussing her sex life. This somehow later turned into trauma and baby PTSD.”
“I am surprised how little the media have reported about these intercepts. There was so much more in it than just the forgotten phone call.”
“Her voice is like chalk scraping across a board. Much hilarity over the police asking about the ‘see you later’ message’. She uses the word, ‘I’ about a million times. You are right about word emphasis when she is lying. Her tone takes on an (even more) whiny pitch, as in ‘I did NOT…’ She even has the chutzpah to state,’Meredith was my FRIEND. I could be dead, too.’ Completely shameless and without any remorse. So chilling. And her family laugh along with her and humour her.”
” I found odd Amanda Knox would question the broken window. It struck me as incredibly lame. If you know nothing about a crime, why question anything you know nothing about? Further, is the reason she found it “strange” because it was so clear that no one could have climbed up that wall? If not, why would it be “strange” in the first place? So many red flags.”
“What I also found unusual for an innocent person to say is the constant repetition of “the police know shit”. She seems so sure about that, one has to wonder how much she actually knows to be in a position to judge.”
” I feel for Edda Mellas. I felt sorry for her when I listened to that tape. This woman had two children and was left by her husband for another woman. Curt Knox did not care to provide for them as he was busy building a life for his new wife and family. Edda finished some studies and worked on her career while her mother helped out with the children. Who can blame her that she was not the perfect mother? Single mothers often want to make up for the lack of attention by the (absent) father and can be too lenient because of it. My impression listening to the conversation was that Edda Mellas did not known the whole truth, otherwise she would have avoided asking questions at all, but she knew her daughter was in big trouble and that she kept lying about what happened that night. That much she knew.”
“I found it a little disquieting to read in Barbie Nadeau’s book that Carlo Dalla Vedova hid a lot of information from Edda. I think it was him who told the family the knife was thrown out before the Massei trial had even started.”
“I agree with you on CDV and how her lawyers were not upfront with the parents, but despite all that, they must have known she was lying through her teeth. The sad thing is, as they don’t call her out on it, Knox thinks she is doing a convincing job.”
“I noticed that every time Knox gets to explain her imaginations to her mother, she gets very dramatic and her mother becomes quieter and quieter. I can only imagine what it must feel like when you sit in a foreign prison watching your daughter lie to you in the visiting room and wondering when it all went wrong and what to do next. I noticed Edda Mellas interrupted her daughter when she made insensitive remarks about Meredith’s murder. She also revealed that Knox’s lawyers were drafting a statement including a thought for the Kerchers suffering. Nothing seems to come from the heart with these people. They are very calculating.”
“I am convinced if all this information we have today would have been available publicly in 2007-2009, it would have been much harder for her to get away with her lies. In any case, consider this: Despite having well connected lawyers, a PR firm and the media on her side, she was convicted twice and to this day, many, if not most, doubt her innocence. Hardly a case of success.
“Listening to the prison convo, I had the impression Edda was (naturally) under a lot of stress while Amanda Knox’s only problem seemed to have been boredom. I was struck by Knox’s complete lack of emotion during the conversation. Emotions like devastation, sorrow or anger were completely absent. Even when Knox tells of the discovery of Meredith’s body, she almost jokingly speaks about the mention of just a foot. This alone is alarming, but there are many more instances in the conversation where her lack of emotion is apparent. Her mother did intervene at least once to guide her in her conversation about Meredith. The reaction from Knox’s parents throughout the prison conversations indicate they were only too aware what Amanda’s character is. None of them seemed shocked or surprised to be talking to her in a prison visitation room. I cannot imagine my parents visiting me in prison and all they want to talk about is the colour of my slippers and the correct size of my underwear. They would have been devastated. Also, I noticed that Curt’s description of holding his crying daughter for an hour in his arms did not happen, at least not on November 13th. When I said I felt sorry for Edda Mellas, I referred to the situation as a whole in which she found herself in thanks to her daughter. ”
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